Originally Posted by
thinktubes
Quad ESL? As a college student, I lived next to a tenured English professor who had a pair of those powered by Acoustic Research tube gear like these. Fantastic sounding setup!
Yes, a bronze pair of the original QUAD ESLs. The owner was the son of a service member who brought three pair home from England, gave two pair away, and stored my pair. They weren't even dusty - fit for a museum, and if ever played in the U.S. as found, set for 240 volts, would have been babied at 120 volts. I lucked out noticing them on eBay while working in Woodland Hills, and nobody else did, so that Saturday I listened to them and paid him his asking price with no haggling, as I had promised if they sounded right to me. $1500 for speakers that cost $4000 forty years ago when I first heard them in NYC, and would cost maybe $15K to replace with the current version. No way could I afford that in my retirement now.
QUAD ESLs were the first 'full range' electrostatic speakers, and first came out in 1957. Mine were produced in 1972, and my black pair in 1982 iirc.
On the thread topic, they are still considered a reference speaker - I read somewhere that Martin Logan keeps a pair in good shape for comparisons, and they have made every "most influential speaker' list ever written by a smart person. They were the model for Jon Dahlquist's DQ-10s, both visually and sonically. In an interview I read but cannot find, he was quoted as saying there were really only two kinds of speakers - "they are here" speakers, and "you are there" speakers. He was maybe the first to get a "you are there" sound with dynamic drivers.
Both vintage Luxman and modern PrimaLuna tube amps blew up on me, so they are now driven by a 12-watt class A amp, discussed here:
https://audiokarma.org/forums/index....-repro.794345/
The longer legs were my modification. The rear legs are attached to the floor, as we have dogs and dog-sit other's.
MCM, or what?
I think a mix of vintage and modern works well, for me.
