Quad Electrostatic Loudspeakers

[Ted Kendall]

Agreed - the point about the electrostatics is that they ae good enough to listen through to the programme. It's also fair to say that, although their bass extension is limited, much of the "have no bass" gossip is down to the clean and uncoloured nature of the bass response.

[RojDW48]

Back in the 60s I had a cellist girlfriend who regarded any kind of amplification as anathema to the purity of music (she was utterly unimpressed by my hi-fi, so it must have been my natural charm and good looks). I took her to see Ravi Shankar at the Colston Hall in Bristol. There were half a dozen 'radiators' ranged around the maestro and his tabla-ist - she took them to be just that and at the end crowed 'There! perfect without any electronic assistance!' You can imagine the pleasure I got from introducing her to the sound man, who showed her the ESL57s and the Radford MA15s driving each one. Strangely - the relationship didn't last much longer.

[tony brady]

I think it was 1974 or possibly 1975 we went on a school trip to the Science Museum. They had an amateur radio station upstairs with a single ESL57 hanging from the ceiling.

They also had a TV showing the index page for Ceefax. Happy days, all the old electronics is now in the basement!

[vidjoman]

My feelings are that with an ESL the sound just ‘appears’ in the room but with a coned speaker you can hear it coming. I suspect it’s to do with the extremely lightweight diaphragm compared to the heavier cone of a normal speaker which takes a relatively long time to get moving.

[PWH]

I have had my pair in daily use for nearly 35 years. They do have bass, just not the thump of modern speakers. I can listen to them all day and would not be without them.
One day I may be brave enough to service them as I am sure they must have deteriorated- (maybe at the same rate as my hearing!) -but if it ain't broke.....

[raditechman]

On Sunday morning I was talking to the chap who was manager of GB2SM station at the Science museum until it closed. (He is a member of my local radio club).
He said that Quad manufacturing came along and supplied two electrostatic speakers and Quad amps, tuner etc. to make a stereo Quad HiFi system. Later the museum reorganized the station and only one speaker was left. That was used to relay what was going on to the public.
Now it is all gone, but he told me that as far as he knew the Museum still had the Quad equipment in storage.
He also said that when the original Quad system was installed it sounded superb.

John

[nutteronthebus]

After looking at the RS site on refurb on the ESL-57 is it worth renewing the cap's and diodes on the EHT power supply as the speakers seem to work fine ( total cost £50 ish )

Dave L

[Craig Sawyers]

The perceived lack of bass is illusory. This is a general issue with open baffle speakers, whether electrostatic, ribbon technology (like Magneplanar and the late lamented Apogee), or conventional driver like the Linkwitz LX521. All these, including the Quad 57's, have plenty of bass extension, but:

(a) have less *perceived* bass output as compared with a conventional box speaker
(b) this is mainly to do with the way that a dipole loudspeaker interacts with room modes
(c) an electrostatic, and ribbon, are much more linear (ie have less harmonic distortion) as compared with a conventional electromagnetic drive unit.

I had a pair of 57's which needed sorting quite badly - and returned them to the original glory using parts from One Thing Audio http://www.onethingaudio.net/ . I sold them because I had built the LX521.

Measured free field, the -6dB point of the 57 is 45Hz. Which means that it will amply reproduce the lowest double bass or electric bass guitar lowest notes at around 41Hz particularly with longitudinal room mode enhancement.

It is worth noting that Peter Baxandall (he of tone control fame) was as much involved with the 57 design as was Peter Walker - they worked rather closely on the development.

Craig

PS and get them off those daft little legs and mount them on a decent stand. One Thing do ones at an eye-popping £237 a pair. But if you have woodworking skills you can easily build a pair. Retain the legs just in case you ever sell them.

PPS This German company bought all the jigs etc from Quad, and remanufacture the ESL57's for Euro7990 https://www.quad-musik.de/index.php/...taten/esl57-qa

[Radio Wrangler]

Good grief!

I suppose they only have to sell a few pairs of speakers and they're likely have paid off what the tooling must have cost. THat's expensive!

David

[Craig Sawyers]

When first introduced in 1957 the price of a single mono speaker was £52, or £104 for a stereo pair.

The RPI has done a factor of 28 since then, so £2,900 now or Euro3270

So although the remanufactured price is about twice that, it is not outrageously expensive as compared with the RPI-factored original price.

Craig

[barrymagrec]

I`m pretty sure I remember the 1962 ish price being £47 each and shortly afterwards they went up to £52. (My uncle used to give me his old HiFi news magazines)

My Dad told me they were £42 when they first came out, he was working at a Radio, TV and record retailer at the time and they had one in the shop very early on and it quickly became the speaker he aspired to.

Not that this significantly affects your point.

[gramofiend]

I believe, from memory, that the Quad ESL 57 hit the market in 1957 and the number 57 followed through in the price of Fifty seven guineas. A guinea in old money, pre decimal for those who don't know, was one pound one shilling or in todays money one pound and 5 pence!

Mike

[barrymagrec]

I think not, the price in the September 1964 Gramophone is £52.00 each from several suppliers (rpm was in force then) and they were only advertised as Quad Electrostatics - the ESL 57 tag didn`t happen until the ESL 63 was launched and there was need for differentiation.

What became known as the ESL 57 was first shown in 1956 though possibly not available until 1957, the ESL63 was not available until 1981 though it had been many years in development.

http://www.quad-hifi.co.uk/our-story.php

[Ted Kendall]

Indeed - the type number referred to the year Peter Walker thought of the annular ring device for producing a virtual point source, which is the major conceptual improvement of the '63 over the original design. The old 'un still takes some beating, though...

[theoldtrout]

Back in the late 1970s I spent a lot of time listening to a friend's ESL57s, both a pair and stacked pairs, the clarity was outstanding. Many years later I repaired the power supplies in a pair of ESL63s, took them home for a listen and was so surprised how good they were with orchestral music that I bought a pair of ESL989s, similar to the 63s but with an extra bass panel. They are rather big but the sound is superb when driven from my valve amp; a solo piano sounds as though it is in the room. These speakers do need careful positioning to get the best results.

[nutteronthebus]

Just found that One Thing Audio are having a sale on ESL 57 EHT power boards at £75 as the parts less the board costs >£50 is it worth just buying the pre assembled board


Dave L

[vidjoman]

Their boards are excellent. Much better than changing parts on an old (50+ years) board.