Setting up Quad 988 right

I had the same experience when I first got my electrostats. Moving them further apart and properly setting the toe-in are definitely steps in the right direction After many, many tweaks - especially with vibration control (on the components) - my imaging is almost too high. Now, I need to figure out how to bring it back down.

With my 989s in a larger room, I discovered that the soundstage (SS) got bigger the farther from the front wall they are; mine are now SEVEN feet from the wall in my 19-feet-deep room. And I too sit fairly close to the plane of the speakers altho mine are farther apart in my 21-feet-wide room.

Quads are NOT tall speakers and the drivers are POINT-, not line-source. Many owners of the '63s and now the 988s find the image and SS height too low. Some kind of stand about a foot high would help. Gradient made an apparently-fine-sounding dipole subwoofer built so that the '63s stood on them; you might investigate those. I see that Sound Anchors does not list a stand for the 988.

I sure love my 989s, altho I confess I just ordered a pair of ET LFT-8s.
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I am working on a music/theater system and I plan to use five or more 988 mounted to the ceiling "upside down" in a circle. The circle array is specified for five channel sacd and probably three channel as well. Another reason for this arrangement is I want the center to be, or more correctly, I want the front L&R to be time coherent with the center channel. For correct imaging and high frequency responce (reception at the listening position a.k.a. "sweetspot") they must be toed in anyway. Also, even in a "two channel" stereo system a center speaker set at -13db can do wonders as Paul Klipsch and others have taught me. Read my thread on "Quad is going to happen to me."

Mr, if you intend to space the 5 equally about the circle, I think you'll find that the L- and R-fronts are too far apart. The ITU 5-speaker setup, for which virtually all multichannel recordings are made, has the 3 fronts spaced fairly narrowly--say, at 10:30, 12, and 1:30--while the 2 surrounds are spaced fairly widely--say at 4 and 8--so that they're as much sides as rears.

I suggest you experiment with your 5 988s on the floor before you attach them to your ceiling. Do observe the space to the rears of all of them, too.

Sure ought to sound great when you get them aligned!

How big is your room?
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Raising Quad 88 or 89 off the floor onto stands will severely affect (reduce) the bottom end. This is well documented not just my opinion. Search out the posts here, on Audio Asylum, or discuss with your retailer. Keep them coupled to the floor; as I mentioned previously the brass cones worked great for me. I had mine almost 4 years and tried almost every permutation of distance from front wall, side wall, toed in/toed out, tilted up/tilted down, etc.
Good luck and email out of this thread if you want to discuss in more detail.