Truth in tonality

haven''t found any and to this bassplayers ears the bass is coherent and in balance to the rest of the speakers frequency response

As a musician I value a speaker that captures the tonality of an instrument . audio gimmicry doesn''t impress me .Field of depth and wide soundstaging is not the measure of a greatspeaker but truth of tone is.Acymbal must sound like it does in real life,irregardless of where it is placed.Stacked Quad 57 speakers even from different decades gives me the most realism I''ve had.Ive had Cls IIz,Acoustat,and numerous box speakers,all have their strengths but esl 57 are music not gimmics or marketing.Sit back and enjoy the music because thats what comes out.I dont find myself wasting time and money trying to improve the SOUND ,I spend all of my time enjoying the MUSIC.

Similar Products Used:

Acoustat III, ML CLS IIZ, Quad 63,Mirage 3si,Rogers LS35a,Vanderstene ,

I had the Quad ESL for about 2 years and was quite pleased. Their undisputed strenght is their midrange. There is one thing you can say for sure. These speakers are absolutely merciless. If something sounds bad its somewhere before the speakers. Many friends brought their electronic equipment to my place to hear it with the QUAD and were terribly disapointed when it sounded like shit (sorry). There was a saying: Do you know what sounds better than a pair of QUADs? Two pair of QUADs. And it's definitly true. This is also why Mark Levinson used two pair of Quad in their legendary HQD System to present their outstanding amplifiers.
It's a total different world your entering. I have to put one on top of the other and one pair was standing in a frame. Many problems were solved. The precise positioning of the Instruments however was lost. But on the other hand then sound became much fuller and even deep basses were audible. A few weeks ago I sold them after 15 years and recently I got me a pair of Martin Logan CLS IIz. Now I'm looking for a subwoofer. And I'm a convinced Electrostat listener. I even don't like Martin Logans hybrid solutions
And if this doesn't work out I going to sell ML and probably shoot myself.
I have listend to many very expensive Loudspeakers. None of them was so much better except beeing louder
So three stars for one pair and five stars for two pair.

Imaging,midband

Low Bass, you must be in the sweet spot. Not for parties.

Scary loudspeakers, these ESL's. Before I begin, I must confess I messed things up. Because of their size, I had to rotate them. Although people warned me about some possible side-effects, I am still happy with it.

At first, I didn't angle them inwards. This gives an odd effect: You can determine how crispy these speakers can sound, but doesn't give you an idea of their ability to focus. Yesterday evening, I angled both speakers, so I was facing them both.

I repeat, they are scary: I could just look into the music: singers in the middle, instruments and ather singers around them, crispy and clappy sound. Live recordings sound like, eehm... live recordings. Not for ravers, although it manages to reproduce rock quite well. Even the Who showed me things I had never seen. I had NEVER heard something like that before.

Before, I owned some $2000 B&W Matrix 804 speakers. I bought the Quads for $1000. The B&W's are totally blown away and miss all the imaging the Quads deliver; they are nice for background music. Who wants to buy them?

I could go on and on. I won't. I will keep these babies. Perhaps add another pair. But they are big...

I use them with an Audio research Classic amp. Marvellous amplifier. Sounds very right with my Rega/Sumiko turntable.

Clean and silence sound. Not disturbing or disturbed by other noises in the room, I mean that the speakers do not bother you in a discussion or a discussion does not bother the speakers.

Fragile and limited lifetime.

I bought the speakers 7 years ago, but they are dying because they need maintenance. One of the speaker's foil is damaged because of overload and both are making noise, even when my aplifier is switched off. Probably condensator problems. The outside is damaged during storage when I moved to another house. Very sorry, but they have to be repaired or replaced. Repair does cost quite some money and for the same amount of money I could buy new other speakers. They also are difficult to place them in my living room. I think I will move them to one of the bedrooms and install them together with my 303/33 set in combination with the first cd player CD100 of Philips, a collectors item too, just for memory to the good old days. There is no speaker with such a story as the Quad 57, as they were made from the 55's till the 85's. I use them currently in combination with the philips (yes I am from Holland) Digital output only 882 CD drive 882 (11Kgs) in combination with the philips 888 digital amplifier. This set is also becoming a collectors item as it was an attempt of Philips to enter the high end market for audio.

Success to all the ones still keeping alive the ESLs

Similar Products Used:

None

See reviews below.

To the reviewer immediately below.

So Dave, you must be one of those Bose/Cerwin Vega users with your ears shot to pieces by grungy music!

A bit of an unfair comment I suppose but its all about "horses for courses", which you don't seem to appreciate. Its not about whether you like Quad electrostatics or not, its about what is established fact. Audiophiles all around the world acknowledge electrostatics as being the most accurate and natural transducers. You might get more loudness or a more intense treble out of a cone speaker, but this doesn't equate to reproducing recorded music as realistically as possible, a cone/dome speaker just can't do it as well as an electrostatic.

With Quad electrostatics you can hardly tell the difference between a real voice and a recorded one, or between a real acoustic guitar or one on a recording - they are that good. I have tried this experiment in the same room and the Quad passes the test with ease.

Perhaps one day you will acquire a more refined taste for your music making and discover that electrostatics reproduce the live event better than anything else, and thats why people who know the difference really like them.

See posting below

See posting below

Just as a follow-up to my posting below . . .

In case you might be thinking that my review of the
Quad ESL57 electrostatic loudspeaker is a favourable viewpoint from an obvious ESL fan, please note that the
January 2000 edition of Hi-Fi News & Record Review has
voted the ESL57 as 'THE GREATEST HI-FI PRODUCT OF ALL TIME'.

This is an incredible accolade from a reputable hi-fi
journal with a 40 year tradition.

If this doesn't convince you that the ESL is the best
speaker ever made nothing will.

Similar Products Used:

See posting below

Imaging, clarity

Size,no low bass, will need maintenance - buying them is a minefield unless you know what you are doing.

Just brought a pair of 1980 57's. Sound absolutely great, I run them with Cyrus kit, III integrated, PSXR'd and used as a pre with a Xpa running the power. Hardly an audiophiles dream in the amp dept but they do sound great, no other speaker under 1500k sounds close.

However what I would say is that buying them is tough, most of the information about supposses more than just a laymans view on things, the flaws you only fully understand before you buy them. I'm still curious about issues such as running them without feet on the carpet, running near radiators, most hifi shops don't really know, others make you feel like a cheap rat. However I guess thats similar to buying a 30 yr old MG.

Bottom line is that I thing they are great and hope to have many years enjoyment, albeit with some maintenance time in there. After buying a pair of stax I wouldn't buy anything else but Electro statics, if your considering buying a pair of speakers and don't have much room (like me), don't even listen as your bound to be sucked into what can best be described as living your life around your Quads !

5 stars for value (not often you bring something home and simply can't see how life could of existed before hand)
4 stars for overall rating, I'm sure if you spend 2k you'll find something better, they are 30 yrs old after all.

Similar Products Used:

Stax Headphones

By comparison, most anything else sounds high fidelity...

In a world of glitter and glow, in a world of tinsel and show; the unreal from the real thing is hard to know...

For many greying music and equipment enthusiasts (past & present) I'm sure 57's were/are a rites of passage and at the very least have to be heard, certainly that's how it was for me.

Owned a few pairs over the years, never hung on to them and on reflection missed them when they were gone. I found them an acquired taste which made much more sense after I cultivated a fondness for female vocal fragile & sonorous, soulful jazz, minimal contemporary and any other good acoustic music.

I run stacked 57's driven by old trannies in a 2nd system. They were first put together by Peter Lindley (loosely after Levinson's style, using Kelly Decca ribbon tweeters) in the late 80's, and subsequently totaly stripped down, comprehensively re-built and upgraded by a chum before he passed them on to me this year. The speakers were originally manufactured before I was born (I'm 4Oh! this year) and I'm driving them with 27 year old trannies - Electrocompaniet's original 25W'ers, bi-amped, fed by cd source via passive line.

The system sounds simply musical and uncomplicated.

It seems that I am relieved of the duty to concentrate, analyse and interpret. The musical message is conveyed without all that hard work. The sound isn't for everyone but who knows, given time...

I guess in the words of Nitin Sawhney's 'street guru', I'm a low-tek guy in hi-tek world.

Enjoy the journey.

FW

Similar Products Used:

stax, logans etc

Hard to believe that nobody has submitted a review on this classic speaker, so I'll start the ball rolling.
First, the bad points:
1) it doesn't play loud enough to make your ears bleed - however, it will play loudly enough to reproduce concert hall levels in a reasonable sized room.
2) it is very directional, particularly between sitting and standing, but also side to side
3) the extreme highs are a bit soft
4) the low bass is missing, and the midbass is limited in the amount of noise it will make.
5) it has to stand well away from the back wall, so you can't disguise it.
6) it doesn't give the pinpoint imaging of some other speakers
7) it can be finicky about what amplifier you are using to drive it - many users prefer to use tube amplifiers.

All of these points, with the possible exception of the directionality, were recognized from the very beginning. Nevertheless, if you read some of the reviews in High Fidelity (U.S.)and Gramophone (Great Britain) people were blown away by the sound of this speaker. It just sounded more realistic than nearly anything else available at the time. But that was more than 40 years ago. What about today? These 40 plus year old design is still the choice of many experienced listeners, because of their good points, which are:

1) through the midrange, it will still give the illusion that there are real, live musicians playing more than almost any speaker you can name. It does this by a combination of:
2) very low coloration
3) high amount of detail - exceptionally revealing of both sonic and musical subtleties.
4) very fast, clean, dynamic sound

This last point needs some explanation, since dynamics has been used to describe two things, first: how loud a speaker plays, and the Quad doesn't play rock music at concert levels (it will play classical and jazz, however, at realistic levels), and second, how well a speaker reproduces the contrast between soft and loud. Here the Quad excels - it sounds detailed even at very low levels, unlike many speakers, which sound muffled as the volume is turned down. The result of the latter is that the listener turns up the volume in an attempt to hear more information, but this distorts the loudness scale of the performance. An orchestra in a concert hall rarely exceeds 100 dB peak levels, which the Quad can reproduce without problems, however, double the apparent volume and you're out of luck.

These speakers do not do everything well. But, what they do well, they do as well or better than anything on the market. If your priorities match the Quad's strengths, this is a 5 star product, if they don't, you may be disappointed. Either way, if you haven't heard them, it's worthwhile to do so, if for no other reason than to see what you're missing.

The Quad ESL 57 are the most involving speakers I have ever heard. It literally can move you to tears. The only drawback are the positioning (well away from the back wall) and the very odd styling (it looks like a heater).