Quad Electrostatic Loudspeaker 63

John A. Gold Member Username: John_a Post Number: 2915 Registered: Dec-03	Posted on Sunday, March 27, 2005 - 08:45 GMT About four weeks ago I bought a refurbished pair of Quad ESL 63 loudspeakers. I have a one-year warranty; they are essentially new, having been rebuilt by the manufacturer, and delivered straight to me. I could not be happier with this decision. These speakers work on an unconventional principle. A large area of very thin plastic membrane is charged, electrostatically, and held between pairs of electrodes, mounted in vertical panels. In the ESL 63 and its newer incarnations, the electrode pairs are arranged in concentric rings. The signal makes the electrodes attract or repel the charged membrane. This starts with the smallest pair of electrodes, near the centre of the vertical plane, and then the signal is delayed as it passes out to each successively larger pair. The membrane has a very small mass for a unit area; its momentum is negligible. It moves air in direct response to the change in voltage applied to the electrodes. According the manufacturer, the result is that each speaker produces sound that is very close to that which would be heard from a ideal point source located about 30 cm behind it. The result is imaging, transparency, and detail like no other speaker I have ever heard. In contract to conventional, electromagnetic speakers, one can forget about crossover frequencies, and how to obtain time- and phase-coherence between drivers. There is new interest and pleasure in everything that I play on the ESL63s; music, movies, speech - everything. It sounds just as if there is no speaker there at all; only the original source. There are two current models, both out of the average price league: the Quad 988, very close to the ESL 63; and the 989, which is larger, for more extended bass. There is also a forerunner, the ESL 57, which went out of production soon after the ESL 63 came in, in the early 1980s. There are drawbacks (such as size and a limit to maximum volume) which mean these speakers are not for everyone. However, if the aim in hifi is to reproduce the original sound as accurately as possible, in the home, then Quad ESLs should be taken very seriously, and on anyone's audition list, in my opinion. In recent weeks I have been saying similar things on other threads on this forum, and thank certain contributors for their input. I thought I should put this under "Speakers". There are other manufactures which use the electrostatic principle, too. And other ways of making "planar" speakers. I am not in a position to evaluate these from my own experience. The other broad conclusion which I recommend is that there is not much to say about recent developments in technology, not in terms of absolute sound quality, and not from speakers. The "63" refers the year of design.
My Rantz Gold Member Username: Myrantz Post Number: 1607 Registered: Aug-04	Posted on Sunday, March 27, 2005 - 09:28 GMT Hey John, Here you go: ESL 63 http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=14993%26item%3D5761518 751%26 No, I'm not bidding LOL!
JOHN S Silver Member Username: John_s Columbus, Ohio US Post Number: 281 Registered: Feb-04	Posted on Sunday, March 27, 2005 - 21:36 GMT John, Here's my dream system Six 57s!! Guess I'll be dreaming for a long time!
diablo Bronze Member Username: Diablo Fylde Coast, England Post Number: 69 Registered: Dec-04	Posted on Sunday, March 27, 2005 - 23:13 GMT That's an impressive looking set-up! Might become my dream system as well. I nearly bought a pair of 57s about 25 years ago. I found an ad in the paper for Quad II / 22 system and went round to the guy's house. I bought the amp system but not the speakers which he also had for sale - just too big for the listening room in my house. I think he wanted about £50 for them (they were old-fashioned at the time). I think I'll have to move house again in order to find space for such things!
diablo Bronze Member Username: Diablo Fylde Coast, England Post Number: 70 Registered: Dec-04	Posted on Sunday, March 27, 2005 - 23:20 GMT In my previous post, I forgot to include this link which refers to the original Quad ESLs being designated "the greatest HiFi product of all time" by HiFi News.
John A. Gold Member Username: John_a Post Number: 2918 Registered: Dec-03	Posted on Monday, March 28, 2005 - 12:53 GMT diabo, Thanks. I first heard ESLs at dealer, as the 57s, about the same time you nearly bought some. I loved them, the sound has stayed with me all these years, but they were too expensive, I think around £800 even then. I also decided against a used Quad II / 22 system at about the same time. I worried about the power rating, and when the dealer said it included a spare set of valves, I decided life was too short for that, and I was too young to be buying retro equipment. I know better, now I am older. And, I do think, wiser! JOHN S, SIx ESL 57s seems a bit obsessive to me. I believe the delight of the sound comes from the virtual point source. I would expect three pairs to sound less good than one. But that guy has obviously taken some care setting them up. I shall see if I can get a photo of our ESL 63s over the next few days. We have a small listening room at present, about 11' x 15'. They are not that obtrusive visually. Rather handsome, really. There are are angled in a bit to give the best frequency response, but they sound excellent from anywhere. The angling in also removes direct excitation of the two horizontal room nodes. The planar, bipolar design means the vertical node is not excited at all, and this is the one that often causes problems in small rooms. My Rantz, That final price is roughly what I paid, converting to £ from AUS $. Mine are good as new, shipped from Quad, and with a 1-yr warranty from a reputable trading company that also has a "high-end" showroom in central London. I am not sure I could deal on e-Bay. I see the purchaser was the first bidder. He got "the best speakers in the world" for the price of a new, upper-mid-range, DVD player. I'll bet he is delighted with them.
JOHN S Silver Member Username: John_s Columbus, Ohio US Post Number: 283 Registered: Feb-04	Posted on Monday, March 28, 2005 - 14:45 GMT John you may be right about that tri-Quad stack. Maybe, with the right listening distance, any "virtual point source" issues would be resolved. In any case, I'd still love to hear them! Looking forward to your photo....
Jan Vigne Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigne Dallas, TX Post Number: 3274 Registered: May-04	Posted on Monday, March 28, 2005 - 16:28 GMT Stacked Quads are (here we go again) a matter of taste. Double was the norm (?) but triple was the "mine is bigger than your's" favorite. Stacking gave benefits in the areas where the panels are weakest; power handling, dynamics, vertical dispersion and bass response. Three panels can simply absorb much more power and move lots more air. The point source aspect of the design was lost but was replaced by a quasi-line source operation. Like the big Magnepans, the stacked Quads moved a vertical plane of air that, from what was printed about the set up, fairly convincing in its own right. John, I would think HiFi News or Gramaphone has a review of the stacked Quads somewhere in their archives. If not there, check K. Kessler's book on the history of Quad as a company. I understand it is a fascinating read in its own right, too.
John A. Gold Member Username: John_a Post Number: 2921 Registered: Dec-03	Posted on Monday, March 28, 2005 - 17:32 GMT JOHN S. Thanks. I might get stands, that's all. Right now I have the speakers tilted back a few degrees. I put some coins under the front feet. There was not much wrong with them standing vertically. In the 988s the panels are tilted at 5º to the vertical, I think. Jan, Thanks. You know it all. Yes, I am interested to get hold of K. Kessler's book. But no time right now. Also, he is a writer I can only take in small doses. I have no interest in stacking multiple pairs. I am just delighted with the pair I have. The ESL 63s move plenty of air for me. They play beautifully as loud as I ever need to go, and have plenty of bass extension. The manual quotes - 6 dB at 35 Hz which is pretty good by any standards, and more than enough for our current room. If I ever move them into a huge room I might consider getting a small active sub, or recruiting our HT sub, but it would be odd feeding Quads from its speaker-level output. I would worry about the quality of its crossover circuit. May be I'll give it a go one day, but it would be out of curiosity - there is nothing AT ALL wrong the basic ESL 63, as far as I can determine. Buying more pairs just in order to stack them sounds fairly deranged, to me. If anyone ever happens to give me an extra pair, then I might try them as surrounds, or, more likely, as speakers for another room. Or give them to someone I love. One pair is enough!
Jan Vigne Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigne Dallas, TX Post Number: 3275 Registered: May-04	Posted on Monday, March 28, 2005 - 18:09 GMT In stacking the 57's, the point source aspect was not as much a concern as it is with the 63's. (My understanding of Doubled ESL-63's is they become a virtual point source at a certain distance from the speakers. This, of course, requires a room of substantial size.) The 57 did not operate in the same fashion as the 63, with the 63 being the first Quad panel that approximated a true point source. The 57 was designed more as a three point source system, with consistent phase coherence, that had a more "cut from the same cloth" quality than a convention (dynamic driver) three way. The 57 was set as a high, mid and low frequency design with variously sized panels handling the different frequencies. The cohesion of the original speaker (remember, that's what made it impossible for you to ever forget the first time you heard Quads) came from the fact that all the panels launched their soundwave from the, more or less, same plane. The concept of creating one large panel that could operate as a single point source didn't come about until the 63 was introduced. (Materials had evolved sufficiently by that time to allow one large panel that could be driven over its entire surface.) As such, the original ESL was somewhat similar to the original Large Advent. When either speaker was stacked, the high frequency drivers were normally placed together with the low frequency drivers at the top and bottom of the stack. With either speaker what to do when using three speakers became a matter of choice as the third speaker had to interrupt the pattern. If you think about how the Quads and Advents were arranged in a doubled mode, this eventually became the MTM, or D'appollito, configuration. http://www.geocities.com/drquad@pacbell.net/stackedquads1.jpg http://www.geocities.com/drquad@pacbell.net/npk9.jpg http://geocities.com/drquad@pacbell.net/pkttpair1.jpg http://www.integracoustics.com/MUG/MUG/tweaks/quad/hey_you/stacking.html http://www.audiophilia.com/hardware/quads.htm http://www.geocities.com/drquad@pacbell.net/#Quad%20Reviews John, have you set the 63's according to Quad's instructions, or is the toe in something you decided sounded better to you in your room? The horizontal dispersion of the 63 eliminated much of the beaming aspect of the original ESL. Were I sold the Quad, I don't remember setting the speakers up with any toe in.
John A. Gold Member Username: John_a Post Number: 2922 Registered: Dec-03	Posted on Monday, March 28, 2005 - 18:50 GMT Thanks, Jan. The manual mentions (i) leaving some space from the rear wall; (ii) OK to have them next to side wall; (iii) having them NOT aligned with horizontal room axes because of axial nodes; (iv) not placing them in corners or alcoves. Given our small room, and my previous bias towards toe-in (on the basis of getting ffr) then toeing-in seems a good way, and virtually dictated by (i)-(iv). Family members request them further back; we do not have so much living space, at present. So I will try a few things. And post a photo of how they are arranged now. Sorry to be brief. Must leave. But, two bottom lines.. (i) they sound fabulous even in the next room, or out in the street with the window open, contrary to rumours that they are picky about positioning (I think it is the owners who are picky); (ii) after all these years, and as a long-term perfectionist, my first priority is to listen to some music and generally "feel good" about having made this decision! Even my worst enemy would not call me "complacent" but there comes a time when one should just decline to be wound up about things. Make any sense...?! But please keep trying! I learn so much. With thanks.
John A. Gold Member Username: John_a Post Number: 2923 Registered: Dec-03	Posted on Monday, March 28, 2005 - 19:58 GMT Thanks also for the links, Jan. The "@" is parsed in correctly by the ecoustics software, I think, which probably assumes it must be part of an e-mail address. I have read some of those already. The photo I posted on Old Dogs is lifted from the second-to-last. Quite right about the "point source" and concentric electrodes with delay lines coming in with the ESL 63. I was careful with that in my original post; did not wish imply the ESL 57 was the same, nor bury readers with too much detail. I have not taken my 63s apart yet, so the photos in intrgraacoustics are good to have My only complaint with the company I bought from is that somewhere along the line someone forgot the original power cords/mains leads. The delivery man did not know they had them. I bought some new from a local shop. Small price to pay. It is interesting that Quad has stuck very closely to the ESL 63 design with the 988, and then just added some more panels for extra bass with the 989. Anyone still reading this, Quad is no longer a true UK-independent, but has a parent company, same one as Wharfedale, Chinese-owned IAG. But the 988 and 989 are still made in Huntingdon. Personally, I have no problem with that. I like having the original. And I could afford them, too.
mauimusicman Unregistered guest	Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 22:39 GMT John, GREAT speakers. Good job finding those. What are you driving them with? Perhaps you could add a few comments about the time/phase attributes of the Quads, so other readers might have a better understanding of time/phase aligned speakers.
John A. Gold Member Username: John_a LondonU.K. Post Number: 2929 Registered: Dec-03	Posted on Thursday, March 31, 2005 - 05:11 GMT mauimusicman, Thanks. Currently I am using a Sony TA-N55ES power amplifier which is rated approx 2 x 80 W into 8 ohms. Since each speaker is just one transducer, with no crossover frquency, I expect the time and phase aligment is as good as it gets, and this accounts mostly for the startlingly clear imaging and detailed sound stage. In music, I hear inner parts like never before. Reviews often praise the ESL 63's "mid-range" but I think the effect is much more than that. "Holographic" seems like a good word.

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