OK, I outgrew the Quads pretty fast. Sold em today. Some things I will miss about them, but overall they just didn't do it for me. I was spoiled by my first speakers, Legacy Focus, which have deep bass and excellent dynamics and (mostly) very natural gentle tone. The quads have compressed dynamics most of the time, but occasionally can jump out, I guess it depends on the music, but the obvious compression was not for me, especially on classical music which gets a lot of its excitement from the macro and microdynamics of the compositions and phrasing. I heard it when I demoed them, but I thoughtt was the preamp doing it. Nope...
The quads also have limited bass extension, so the feeling of fulness and power is missing. The sound of the Quads bass is so crystal clear and beautiful though that the impact of the bottom octave is hardly missed, unless you are spoiled by square feet of dynamic woofers. I will probably not hear a clearer more transparent bass again, but I gotta feel the power more than the hear the fine texture.
After listening to the Feastrex, I have really come to appreciate the idea that paper is most beautiful and natural sounding material for speakers. The quads have a very slightly plastic sound to things. It is kinda sterile, but not really, not like Focal beryllium tweeter or aluminum mid drivers. It puts a plasticized buzz on brass instruments. In the Quad fest listeners noticed it on familiar tracks, especially vocal sibilants, etc.
The quads are an intellectual listener's perfect speaker. If you think about the sounds, and analyze the phrasing and think think think, listen to cables, and power conditioners, and guitar strings and woodyness of violins, or even for a music major studying compositions as I used to do, then these would be very enjoyable. It is not as ultimately detailed as the beryllium Ushers, which are also more musical (emotional?) but the distortion is so low that the details just flow into you easily. The information that comes from them is intense. Emotion and beauty seem less pronounced.
Aside for those areas, the Quads were mind blowing. The imaging is like watching a movie. I would have to open my eyes often because I would get distracted by the "visuals" which were really "audios." The bass and midrange was utterly real. Rich, thick yet detailed and fast. Hard to describe. Very revealing of electronics, so good stuff is required to get the most out of them, which I don't really wanna upgrade that much. I was able to easily hear the deficiencies of the $1000 minimax preamp compared to Hantras Cary SLP-05 in areas of detail, tone and bass, and the mini is a mighty good preamp.
I thought that the Quads might be more of a small band speaker, bluegrass, jazz, etc. But it played very strongly on rock that was already compressed. It plays plenty loud and the bass is so clear it is enjoyable and "interesting" to listen to rock. But without the deep bass and impact of pressure wave the rock out feeling is hard get just by imagination. Smooth jazz was incredible, these are perfect speakers for Chris Botti or Fourplay type music. Absolutely perfect, plenty of bass, cold withdrawn feel just like most smooth jazz. I wish Ken could have heard them just for that!
Another great thing about them was the way they behaved in the room. Once pulled out far enough they had minimal effect on bass nodes. Swapping in a monopole speaker really showed how good the Quads were in minimizing room reaction. There were more midrange room zingers than bass. I could not hear any bass anomolies at all, but Shane heard some and described them enough that I could start to pick them up. But comparied to Ushers and Focus they were extremely minimal. Some of that is probably the somewhat limited extension (only 40Hz flat) but also the velocity transducer instead of pressure transducer may have an effect? To me sound is sound, so I don't know.
The Quads taught me a LOT in a very short time. Including that my amps need new tubes every year, and that the amps sound bad before they pop tubes. The quads just couldn't play with the old tubes, so I was forced to replace them, and upgrading made a big difference in all the speakers I have played since. Also, I was again reminded the cardinal rule of hifi, to listen at home for an extended period before you commit to buying. My quad demo was too short. But even if it was longer, that demo setup would not be able to reveal the things I heard later in my own house.
It was fun, and didn't cost me very much, so glad to have live to tell the tale. Very interesting speaker. I doubt that I got the most out of it, I'm sure it is capable of MUCH more, and the problems I found could probably be greatly improved with better electronics and acoustic treatment. But some things like the dynamics were inherent to the speaker, so it was a no go for me.
Rich
