Beautiful laquer wood finish, remote controlable with memory presets, phase, and crossover points at 35,45,55,65,75, and 85Hz. Internal crossover is also bypassable so you can control it with your surround processor or external active crossover. Speaker wire inputs also. Very flexable and user friendly.

Weak output below 25Hz for a sub in this price range. Output drops like a rock under 25Hz (per test cd and SPL meter) and is almost nonexistant at 20Hz. Only a 300 watt internal amp. SVS, Tiel,Velodyne, and HSU better value for a sub, but I wanted the matching set. Weak 18 gauge power IEC cord, I upgraded to a 14 gauge. Picks up RFI noise and hum from speaker input jacks when gain is turned up. Poor internal shielding.

I have had the Quad 22L's and 11L's for over a year and finally added the Quad L sub. I wrote a review on the 22L and mentioned that I would be adding the sub later. Well I now have the whole set including the center channel. I don't listen to surround mode for music and only listen to the 22L's and the sub for critical listening. Sometimes I turn the sub off when listening to music that does not have any bottom octave content. The 22L's do quite well on thier own, but adding the sub just added another dimension to the lowest octave and fundemental. Most times you can't even tell it is on until there is a sound in the lowest register that the 22L's don't produce with authority and weight. DVD movies especially have low bass that you feel more so than hear. Bass response for a 12" woofer is quite quick and detailed.

Similar Products Used:

First home sub.

Physical quality of finish is excellent.
Choice of low pass filter selections seems excellent.
Works well as a bass extension unit, the built-in amplifier seems well able to handle the load and the unit's large cooling fins on the back never even become warm.
With intelligent selection of the roll-off frequency the unit integrates well and does not intrude on the main speakers.
Easy to set up and use.
Unable to comment further at this point, though I will write additional follow-ups as the fault either develops further or disappears.

Sad that equipment at this kind of level should be subject to such poor quality control.

Having read several good reviews of this sub-bass unit my partner and I decided to buy one for our main living room system, based primarily on Quad’s reputation as a hi-fi manufacturer and the reviews by owners of this unit. We decided to purchase it by mail order from Weymouth Hi-Fi, England, UK, at a price of £700 which included the shipping. Although we have three excellent dealers who give outstanding service near where we live (Audio T, Sounds of Music, and Sevenoaks Sound and Vision, all in Tunbridge Wells, Kent) as we are shortly relocating we decided to use this opportunity to sound out dealerships in the area that we shall be relocating to, hence our choice of Weymouth Hi-Fi as the people to purchase from.

The system into which the Quad integrates comprises of a Linn Ikemi cd player, Linn Wakonda pre-amp, Myryad MA-240 power amp (an incredible amplifier), and Castle Harlech S2 speakers (superb speakers), with van den Hul interconnects and Townsend Isolda speaker cables. This is a lovely musical system for virtually all kinds of music ranging from solo vocals, contemporary new age to classical and rock, detailed, powerful in output, yet realistically musical, like almost having the performers in the room with you. It is, however, a little light on bass at lower volume levels with some music sources, particularly pre-electronic-percussion seventies rock music. Although there are very many good sub-bass units on the market, what helped decide us in favour of the Quad unit was the fact that it isn’t necessary with this one to grope around down the back of the unit to adjust levels, this is done by remote control. Wake up manufacturers out there, this is the 21st century, we don’t expect to still be groping around down the back of units to make such simple, but necessary adjustments, why not more units with front panel controls (or remotes )?

Sadly, although the unit sounds nice (with the low pass filter set at 55Hz it integrates perfectly into the main system), and with its black piano finish looks like a product of Bosendorfer, we have found the after-sales service ethos of Quad to be very poor, and this is also reflected through their dealer, Weymouth Hi-Fi. Within days after its set-up into our system the unit commenced making popping noises through its speaker when the volume was being turned up or down. This is an intermittent fault, but is independent of the main system, still occurs when connected into our completely independent second/backup system, and the Quad still does this when disconnected from any system altogether. Though these do not appear to be speaker-threatening noises at this point, clearly no speaker in a music system should be exhibiting popping noises on volume adjustment! I phoned the dealer on a Friday afternoon after carefully monitoring this for three weeks and was promised that in the course of the following week they would arrange for a replacement to be delivered and the faulty one collected at the same time, thus ensuring continuity of use. This, of course, is in line with what most of us who have several decades of experience in purchasing and using such equipment would consider normal service at this level of product. On the Monday however, the dealer phoned again, completely reneging on the previous arrangement and informing me that Quad required the unit’s problems to be first verified by the dealer, then sent to them, then a replacement would be sent to the shop for despatch to me by courier. Even assuming that there was no delay in the intermittent fault exhibiting itself, this would mean being without a replacement for at least a week, and possibly much, much longer. I suggested to the dealer that, rather than sit on the unit waiting for the intermittent fault to reappear they might consider sending it to Quad directly for electronic testing! This was something that they hadn’t thought to suggest to me! In the end my partner and I have decided to keep the unit and see how things develop.

Although I have been buying and using hi-fi products since 1981, I have only previously needed backup from manufacturers and dealers on two occasions, once from Myryad and once from Cyrus. Both were absolutely faultless in their immediate response, as were their respective dealerships, Sounds of Music, and Sevenoaks Sound and Vision in Tunbridge Wells. Needless to say, this kind of response has – over the years – helped to consolidate the inclusion and enjoyment of additional Myryad and Cyrus components in our two systems. By contrast, Quad’s response to this is that of a mass production consumer level manufacturer, not that of a quality level hi-fi company. Similarly, their dealership has proven to be equally lacking in quality support, best summarised by my partner’s statement, “…Weymouth Hi-Fi clearly don’t stand behind what they sell!”

This is all rather sad, and must obviously bias my review greatly of what - in other respects - seems to offer the promise of being a good performer. However, the long-term future reliability of the unit appears to be in question. I hope not, as we keep good equipment in our systems for many years. The Quad is used as a bass reinforcement/extension speaker and only at fairly gentle levels. Within this context it is excellent for the job, and this applies whether listening to music by Andreas Vollenweider, David Arkenstone, Genesis, Patty Larkin, Hope Sandoval, Kate Bush, or Joaquim Rodrigo. The choice of switching levels for the low pass filter is easy and effective, simply by pressing the button on the remote control, as is selection of phase (either 0 or 180). The resultant selections are indicated cleanly and clearly in large bright red numerals on the front display panel for a few seconds, then disappear completely until a new selection of level or filter setting is selected. One design omission is that the unit does not come out of standby automatically on receiving an input signal, but must first be switched into use by the remote. This is minor for us, but might be significant if used in a home cinema system.

Under the circumstances, as the reliability of the unit has yet to be proven I can’t offer much of a rating either for the product or the value for money.

Customer Service

Unbelievably poor approach to customer support from Quad.
Unreliable dealer in Weymouth Hi-Fi who, seemingly in line with Quad, do not offer much of a back-up service for what they sell. Needless to say, neither the dealer nor Quad will now ever benefit from us as customers at any point in the future.

Similar Products Used:

Linn, Castle, Cyrus, Myryad