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RE: Quad ESL-63 owners: Please read and consider!

Posted by George S. Roland (A) on April 6, 2015 at 08:51:13

In Reply to: Quad ESL-63 owners: Please read and consider! posted by banpuku on April 4, 2015 at 07:41:38:

An interesting thread. I am not technically qualified to comment on the worth of your proposed changes from an engineering or electronics standpoint, but cannot resist making a couple of comments.

The first is that it strikes me that you may be in search of a solution to a problem that exists more in theory than in reality. I have enjoyed my ESL-63s on their stand-and-deliver stands for 8-10 years and, while there are some areas of performance that have been well known and commented upon frequently as being a problem (deep bass and ultimate sound pressure levels), the sonic strengths of these speakers are formidable. (I know some consider the stand-and-deliver stands to be inadequate, argue for Arcici stands, etc.)

I also owned the Gradient SW-63 dipole woofers for awhile and enjoyed trying them. They got the centers of the speakers at exact ear height for my listening position, and I did notice a bit more clarity. However, the whole was rather overwhelming visually, and I did not like the sound of the ESL-63s with the Gradient crossover in the system, so I went back to my original configuration of the 63s by themselves on stand-and-deliver stands.

I think Peter Walker was a pretty smart guy. It is hard for me to conceive that he would not have considered the issues you raise with care and made sound judgements about those aspects of performance that would count the most in designing and testing his speakers. Of course, that was a long time ago. Materials and available components may have improved enough to be worth looking into.

Over the years, various modifications to the frames and internal parts have been made by the manufacturers with, supposedly, audible improvements. I cannot verify the claims made for these improvements. I would tend to trust Kent's comments on them since he has probably seen the internals and construction of every model of these speakers ever made and has had a chance to listen to all of them.

Finally, before investing in expensive tooling and exotic materials, maybe it would be worth your while to just make some rigid wooden frames, or have a metal one welded up as a prototype, set the speakers in them, clamp them down and listen to see if you hear any improvements. You could do one and leave the other alone for comparison.

I hope you will keep us informed of changes you make and how you feel about their effectiveness.

Good luck,

George

Edits: 04/06/15

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