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"New" Quads and Stands

24.154.216.28
Posted on February 27, 2017 at 00:21:40
George S. Roland
Audiophile

Posts: 1470
Location: N W Pennsylvania
Joined: March 20, 2004



After selling my Quad ESL-63s and suffering seller's remorse, I decided to purchase another pair of Quads--USA Monitors this time. I sent them to Electrostatic Solutions where Kent McCollum, who is a great person to work with, went over them and upgraded the binding posts, replaced the EHT boards, dust covers and installed more open metal screens and grille cloth.
I find these speakers sound best on stands. I could not locate a pair of Quad's "Stand and Deliver" stands, so I built stands for the Quads myself. Arcici stands make the speakers a bit overwhelming visually, so I like the height of the S&D stands. However, these do not aim the speakers' centers at one's ears when seated. By elevating the front of my stands 3/4 inch, I was able to get the centers pointed directly at my ears and now enjoy that added bit of clarity the Arcici stands provide. This stand configuration and the upgrades from ES resulted in a pair of ESL-63s with much improved sonics.

 

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RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 27, 2017 at 04:03:14
Zombie
Audiophile

Posts: 772
Joined: March 5, 2002
 Why not build a lower stand with a little tilt?

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 27, 2017 at 07:01:01
louie3
 Very nice stands, I am a little envious of the roller feet, which would make moving things around a snap.

I also have a pair of Kent's refurbed US Monitors...great guy, great work, great sound.

When you step back and look and the total investment, and forget about the hassle of boxing and shipping and so forth, it is hard to believe what glorious sound you get from that much money.

In my case, $4.5K would have bought nothing in the same ballpark.

Enjoy.

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 27, 2017 at 08:18:47
George S. Roland
Audiophile

Posts: 1470
Location: N W Pennsylvania
Joined: March 20, 2004
 Ain't that the truth! I see reviews of speakers costing thousands more than a pair of restored Quads which mention a Quad-like truth to the sound of instruments and music. In articles on audio there are mentions of a pair of Quads kept for "references" to good sound. They really are magical speakers, and a bargain even given the cost of service.

Thanks for the kind words about the stands! I do move the speakers around a lot. At some later time, I may revise the stands and spike them to the floor, but, for now, the easy mobility fits my needs.

Congratulations on your own discovery of Quads and Electrostatic Solutions's service.

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 27, 2017 at 08:20:44
louie3
 Wonder if there is any real difference in sound between spikes and casters, I know the conventional wisdom, but ....

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 27, 2017 at 08:24:24
George S. Roland
Audiophile

Posts: 1470
Location: N W Pennsylvania
Joined: March 20, 2004
 That's what I did and wrote about--stands shorter than Arcicis with a tilt. Or perhaps I am not following your question?

Thanks for your contribution.

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 27, 2017 at 08:31:45
George S. Roland
Audiophile

Posts: 1470
Location: N W Pennsylvania
Joined: March 20, 2004
 I wonder about that too. I have somewhat old and uneven wooden flooring in my listening room. My B&W Matrix 801 IIs were on their factory-supplied casters and they were never solidly grounded. One caster was always loose. I bought Sound Anchor's dedicated stands for them including their floor protectors for wooden flooring. Now the tripod spiked stands secure them to the floor without doubt and I do believe that has made the sound a bit more solid.
I think if I were to modify my Quad stands, I would make a triangular bottom with a similar three-prong support system. It would be interesting to compare performance between the castered bases and firmly spiked ones.

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 27, 2017 at 08:36:05
louie3
 I have Mye-stands with spikes...concrete floor, but it sure would make moving things around easier with casters....may try them.

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 27, 2017 at 11:14:27
cawson@onetel.com
Audiophile

Posts: 2378
Joined: September 27, 2004
 I have just bought a pair of Quad 2905s (arriving Wednesday) that don't need stands, but I'm interested in the "castors vs spikes" discussion.

10-20 years ago every speaker builder said you must use spikes into the floor to solidly connect speakers to floor to get best sound. Now it seems that "isolation" is the popular choice where speakers seem to be deliberately and often expensively isolated to prevent unwanted vibration. Has the world gone mad, or have I misunderstood the concept, or have the laws of Physics changed over the last couple of decades?

I'm asking because I'll have to decide what to put under my Quads. I don't want spikes into my nice timber flooring, but could use spike cups. Or I could "isolate" the speakers with Vibrapods or some other device made from vinyl, rubber or Sorbothane. Or I could spike into a sacrificial heavy board or stone slab and isolate that from the floor. Any suggestions?

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 27, 2017 at 12:31:29
kentaja
Manufacturer

Posts: 4611
Joined: March 26, 2001
 I was at a show several years ago showing original Quads. A gentlemen comes into my room and asks the price. I tell him $5K/pair. He looks at me with amazement and asks really?

Being from the midwest and someone on the frugal side of the equation I thought to myself am I asking too much?

The guy goes on to tell me that he was just down the hall listening to a pair of $20K speakers and the Quads simply destroyed them. He felt they should be selling for much more than $5K.

I have had this experience more than once at shows. Given their performance most people think they should cost much more. And our room is generally standing room only for most of the show.

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 27, 2017 at 13:35:13
George S. Roland
Audiophile

Posts: 1470
Location: N W Pennsylvania
Joined: March 20, 2004
 An interesting question. It seems to me (amateur that I am) that vibrapads would likely keep floor-borne vibrations from moving the component they support while spikes would ensure that the speaker's base is not moved relative to its support by its vibrating diaphragms.

Perhaps others with more knowledge or experience can chime is here.

On the practical side, you could try some inexpensive experiments. Cut two racketball balls in half and put one half under each corner of your speaker. If the speakers have bolts or screws in the underside, you could replace the corner ones temporarily with longer hardware touching the floor and see if one tweak is better or worse than the other. Round headed bolts would give a very small contact point, similar to a spike, and would not be likely to mar the floor if you are careful.

Let us know how it works out.

Congratulations on getting some Quads too!

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 27, 2017 at 13:36:35
louie3
 "And our room is generally standing room only for most of the show."

Of course it is. Hard to hide great sound. I suspect if the Quads had a higher WAF many more people would be luxuriating in their sound.

The interesting thing is that my Kented US. Monitors are the only speaker I have ever had that my wife will actually sit down and listen to.

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 27, 2017 at 14:05:57
kentaja
Manufacturer

Posts: 4611
Joined: March 26, 2001
 Shows are funny things. Generally Sunday is slow and a lot of exhibitors start packing up early afternoon because they have no traffic in their room.

Not in our room SRO right until the end show even on Sunday. We have to chase everyone out and tell them to come back next year. Or better yet buy the show speakers and take them home!

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 27, 2017 at 15:04:12
Jonesy
Audiophile

Posts: 3156
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba
Joined: September 1, 2005
Contributor
  Since: March 1, 2018
 I think the madness was real, but in context it was for cabinet resonance, whereas the Quads don't have a cabinet per se.

Not to say spikes wouldn't improve the sound, but to be honest, you'll spend a lot of time positioning the Quads until you find the perfect spot. I have the 63's and a .25" toe in or out can be heard. You don't want to be messing with spikes until you've at least reached the sweet spot.

Another thing, I used to use tape measures and strings and levels and on and on. It's a great starting point, but don't be afraid to experiment.

One day I broke free and did all kinds of crazy set ups until I found one that worked for me. It was almost therapeutic when I actually toed them waaaay out to see what would happen.

In the end, they are toed in, but not identical degrees. The distances from side, back and front walls vary by inches. It all depends on your room of course. Obviously my room wasn't the easiest to work with, but "life finds a way." (Jurassic Park?)

Enjoy your Quads!

Jonesy




"I know just enough to get into trouble. But not enough to get out of it."




 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 27, 2017 at 16:46:52
BDP24
Audiophile

Posts: 1070
Location: Vancouver, Washington
Joined: September 12, 2013
 Cawson: For years I used spikes on all my speakers and stands, for the accepted reason---they help keep the speaker enclosure or stand firmly coupled to the floor, resisting moving in reaction to the driver's pumping in and out. Then I read Barry Diament's writing on the subject. Barry makes the case for isolation of all components, including speakers. He recommends placing "roller bearings" under loudspeakers instead of spikes. Since the bearings allow a speaker to move if pushed, how can that be a good thing? The answer is, that while the speaker CAN move if pushed, music itself won't---the mass of the speaker is far greater than the force of the drivers moving. But more importantly, the bearings prevent seismic vibrations (very, very low frequencies) from entering the speaker from below. Diament's writings can be found on his website.

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 27, 2017 at 17:21:20
josh358
Industry Professional

Posts: 12331
Joined: February 9, 2010
 Stone bass or something similar would be ideal. You have two goals here: To isolate the speaker from the building structure to prevent the transmission of low frequency vibration, and to add mass (in effect) to the baffle or enclosure with the same purpose. So a massive base is ideal.

The caveat though is that this may not be much of an issue. It depends I think on room materials and structure and on the speaker itself -- some speakers cabinets are massive and well damped, some are resonant and could use help. So hard to know how much of an audible improvement (if any) it will make.

Finally, Jim Smith recently made a good point -- if you have to experiment with speaker placement to get the best results, or if you have WAF compromises that mean you would get better sound if you pulled the speakers out for serious listening, furniture glides will give you more of an improvement than spikes and the like.

 

Weight?, posted on February 27, 2017 at 17:30:15
fredtr
Audiophile

Posts: 1985
Location: Phoenix
Joined: January 4, 2005
 Has anyone tried adding some weight to the top of the Quad's?

I had read about it some years ago, but never got around to trying it.

 

RE: Weight?, posted on February 27, 2017 at 21:17:58
George S. Roland
Audiophile

Posts: 1470
Location: N W Pennsylvania
Joined: March 20, 2004
 I have heard of this also but have never tried it. One caution is that the joining between the upper panels section of the ESL-63 series and the base is, I would say, a bit precarious. Caution must be exercised not to rock the upper section or torque it relative to the base. This could cause creases to develop in the dust covers or, if carried to an extreme, damage the panel section's frame.

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 28, 2017 at 02:39:05
Green Lantern
Audiophile

Posts: 16952
Location: San Diego, Ca
Joined: November 12, 2002
Contributor
  Since: June 17, 2003
 Very nice! is it 'free standing' or is there support from the rear?

I'm digging the 801s too!









 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 28, 2017 at 04:47:27
cawson@onetel.com
Audiophile

Posts: 2378
Joined: September 27, 2004
 > Stone bass or something similar would be ideal. You have two goals here: To isolate the speaker from the building structure to prevent the transmission of low frequency vibration, and to add mass (in effect) to the baffle or enclosure with the same purpose. So a massive base is ideal.

Interesting but why should a building be vibrating? My own building sways in high winds, but that's at about 1Hz per 5 seconds! Unless I have neighbours with jack hammers, or washing machines spinning, I can't see how building vibrations can adversely affect my speakers. I was under the impression it was the other way round. Spikes were promoted to take vibrations from the speaker cabinet and use the solidity of the floor and thence the building to absorb these vibrations. That's what led me to query the alternative use of absorbers instead of spikes. Curious and curiouser!

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 28, 2017 at 05:59:35
George S. Roland
Audiophile

Posts: 1470
Location: N W Pennsylvania
Joined: March 20, 2004
 The speakers are free standing without physical support from the rear. On the underside of my ESLs there are threaded screws that hold the metal bottom plate to the speaker's base. These screws protrude down a little, so I made shallow drilled-out recesses for these screws' heads to drop into. That way the quads are fully engaged with the stands' top plates and cannot slide.

I purchased longer screws of the same type for the final installation. Once the stands are glued together and finished I will leave four of those screws off, set the speakers in position and then thread the screws through the stands' upper plates into the threaded holes in the Quads' bases.

The B&Ws are fabulous speakers too. Best dynamic speakers I have ever had--that I could afford ;^) They are now fully tricked out with Sound Anchor stands and fully broken-in North Creek crossovers, which have raised their performance to a whole new level. They can play as loud as I want driven by a Pass Labs X-250.5. They can not compete with the Quads' breath-taking clarity, timbral accuracy, cohesiveness and naturalness, but they are still awfully good speakers. Love them both.

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 28, 2017 at 06:52:59
josh358
Industry Professional

Posts: 12331
Joined: February 9, 2010
 Consider the way you feel the bass through a wood floor. The floor is vibrating so much that you can feel it. What's worse, it's acting exactly like a sounding board.

Think of the woofer's vibrating coil as a vibrating string of a guitar, the cabinet or baffle the bridge, and the floor itself as the guitar body. Or of how you touch a tuning fork to a table top, it gets a lot louder. That's the physics of it -- the floor and sheetrock are acting as sounding boards or loudspeaker cones, which are acoustic transformers.

Intuitively, it's the difference between waving your hand back and forth rapidly and waving it back and forth while holding a Japanese fan. In the former case, you'll feel little air resistance, in the latter case much more, because you're pushing on many more air molecules.

But it gets worse than that -- floors and sheetrock are typically resonant at audio frequencies. You can hear the resonances by tapping on them and you'll hear a lot in the audio range. So now they're acting like organ pipes as well and that will tend to give you one-note bass.

So if the floor and sheetrock vibrate, more of the acoustic energy from the vibrating enclosure will be coupled to the air, and more of it will reach your ears rather than being dissipated by the internal damping of the speaker enclosure (turned into heat, or randomly-vibrating rather than systematically-vibrating molecules -- it is the *randomness* here that insures that we can't hear it), and it will tend to resonate at certain frequencies as well.

On the other hand, if that vibrating enclosure could be solidly coupled to a massive, low profile building structure like the studs and joists, you'd potentially have a better situation. The studs and joists are also acoustic transformers, but wired the other way around. They have a high mass density, they're rigid, and their resonances are pretty random. So in effect, they make the mass and stiffness of the enclosure higher if they're well coupled to it. For the most part, the benefit isn't that these solid structures are *absorbing* the vibrations but rather that they're reflecting them because of the extreme impedance mismatch. This, coupled through the enclosure, keeps more of the acoustic energy in the moving mass of the driver where it is dissipated through electrical and mechanical damping.

It's really a complex system though since so many factors can vary -- you have flimsy enclosures that vibrate like crazy, and at the opposite extreme you have speakers like Magicos that take heroic measures to keep the enclosure stiff, massive, and damped. And different kinds of floor and building structures as well -- old resonant wood ones, concrete, what have you. Maggies for example benefit from being coupled to building structures with rigid, massive speaker bases like the Mye.

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 28, 2017 at 08:55:44
Zombie
Audiophile

Posts: 772
Joined: March 5, 2002
 Doesn't look like much or any tilt on the pic

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on February 28, 2017 at 12:22:50
George S. Roland
Audiophile

Posts: 1470
Location: N W Pennsylvania
Joined: March 20, 2004
 The front casters are 3/4 inch higher than the rear ones. If you look at the picture the front casters are attached to two thicknesses of 3/4 plywood and there's a cut-out in the rear corners so that the rear casters are attached to only one thickness of 3/4 inch plywood. I know it doesn't look like much of a tilt, but it aims the center of the speaker exactly to the center of my ear when sitting in my usual listening position. Remember too, please, that the camera will distort angles slightly perhaps lessening the appearance of tilt-back in the speakers.
How did I determine this? I placed a 48 inch aluminum rule against my listening chair where my ear would be and marked that spot with some blue tape. I then cut a flat sheet of cardboard to the exact height of the panel section of the quads with a line drawn perpendicular to the speaker panel's vertical center. I put material under the front casters and sighted along that perpendicular line until it pointed exactly at the little blue tape marker on the rule. 3/4 inch of front caster prop-up did the job!

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on March 2, 2017 at 07:13:49
cawson@onetel.com
Audiophile

Posts: 2378
Joined: September 27, 2004
 Thanks Josh. I understand what you're saying but there are often contradictions in audio theory!

As I sad earlier it was generally believed 20 years ago that floor-standing speakers should always be spiked to the floor - through the carpet if there was one. It was thought that any vibrations in the cabinet could be largely dispersed by bolting it to the floor. Now that we all use spikes, the snake oil peddlers say no, you need to isolate your speakers from the horribly vibrating floors! They sell us crazily priced "sorbothane" or other substances housed in stainless feet and ask hundreds per speaker. Well, if we just want to isolate our speakers so that vibrations from the floor or the cabinet don't adversely affect the music and we believe that isolation is the best way, why don't we simply put a coir matt under our speakers? No vibration is going either way through a coconut floor mat with tens of thousands of minute fibres supporting the cabinet! Or we could use sound deadening sheets that are installed in boat engine rooms. What's wrong with that and why shouldn't it be just as effective as

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on March 2, 2017 at 07:37:03
josh358
Industry Professional

Posts: 12331
Joined: February 9, 2010
 Well, I think the trick in isolation is choosing a suspension that has the right resonant frequency, which in this case would be below that of the lowest frequency vibration of concern, e.g., 16 Hz (but that depends of course on the LF extension of the speakers and also the room and the Fletcher-Munson curve). And the compliance of the suspension would depend on the mass of the speaker. You'd presumably want to add damping to dissipate stored energy. And you'd want the platform on which the speaker rests to be massive and (probably) stiff, to reinforce the cabinet structure -- or maybe you'd want it to damp the cabinet?

I think the science here is pretty straightforward, what isn't as obvious to me is what works best in a given situation -- rooms differ, speakers differ, and how we interpret various stray sounds is quite complex, at one extreme we love the sound and feel of a vibrating wood floor and concert hall designers actually go to lengths to promote that, and at the other extreme something plastic or metallic that rattles drives us up the wall.
I mean, I've often thought that if you're playing a cello recording, the speaker should be spiked to the floor -- a cello is, after all! But a tuba would be a different thing, since there's a well-damped squishy support between the tuba and the ground.

So I guess my philosophy is that there is no single right thing -- a mat might be great with one speaker, terrible with another. Maggies for example aren't very massive and you can feel them vibrating, so the typical approach is to use a very rigid stand like the Myes and couple them to the ground -- that keeps the energy in the diaphragm and improves bass response. However, Peter Gunn has taken the opposite strategy with great success, and used a vibrating wood baffle on the Maggie -- basically the opposite of what the textbooks say to do! As with so much in audio, you have to try it and see what works best.

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on March 2, 2017 at 09:08:14
cawson@onetel.com
Audiophile

Posts: 2378
Joined: September 27, 2004
 I'm in the UK and have found this supplier of sound / vibration absorbing pads, strips and sheets. I'll be asking for samples before choosing some that I'll stick permanently to the underside of thick slate slabs. The speakers will be spiked to the slabs (or even bolts directly) to increase the mass of the cabinets and the pad below will eradicate vibration transfer between floor and speaker and vice versa and allow easy re-positioning of the speakers. What can be better or more effective? And at a fraction the price that the audio industry wants from me! Peter

PS Sorbothane also offers numerous industrial products, no doubt at a fraction the price that the audio people charge for adding a "audio" tag to!

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on March 2, 2017 at 22:00:10
Satie
Audiophile

Posts: 5426
Joined: July 6, 2002
 There are pro audio isolators for speakers like the "SubDude" for subwoofers, look it up.

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on March 3, 2017 at 08:15:28
josh358
Industry Professional

Posts: 12331
Joined: February 9, 2010
 Just make sure that you get the resonance frequency and damping right. Remember that we're dealing with a fairly massive item and low frequencies here, you can't just stick something springy under a slab and expect to get the results you want. I think you'll probably have good luck with products sold for pro audio, since they generally have full specification and are designed for this purpose. Or you could go with a product designed for consumer audio, but the markup will probably be higher than it will be for the pro audio stuff.

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on March 3, 2017 at 08:39:59
cawson@onetel.com
Audiophile

Posts: 2378
Joined: September 27, 2004
 Thanks. I'll speak with the guys at Quad next week to see if they can offer opinions on whether a slate slab fixed to the underside of the speaker's base plate is good, or if it's better to keep the spikes and place a "loose" slate slab under the spikes. I don't want to add to the height of the Quads though. They're already sounding good after very little time spent adjusting angles, etc. Peter

 

RE: "New" Quads and Stands, posted on March 3, 2017 at 08:48:14
josh358
Industry Professional

Posts: 12331
Joined: February 9, 2010
 That's an interesting question. I suspect that the spikes would be superfluous if the speaker is riding on slate and there's no carpet to punch through.

 

Bluetack and cinder block, posted on March 3, 2017 at 13:14:14
Satie
Audiophile

Posts: 5426
Joined: July 6, 2002
 I found a good compromise for Vandersteens using bluetack and solid core cinder blocks as bases. That was more effective than spikes on vanderstands and spikes on cinderblock. The speaker was vibrating an order of magnetude less when cushioned with 5 balls of blue tack per speaker between the speaker and cinderblocks. the floor was wood.

 

RE: Bluetack and cinder block, posted on March 3, 2017 at 17:38:46
cawson@onetel.com
Audiophile

Posts: 2378
Joined: September 27, 2004
 Yes, isn't it interesting that stand-mount speakers have always used Blutak to secure them to the top of the stand, but the stand itself is traditionally spiked to the floor. With floor-standing speakers, the trend seems to be away from spikes into the floor to more of an isolation method.

I'm far from convinced that any of these practices have any over-riding advantage (as otherwise there would be no further discussion) and that what works best after trials of particular speakers on particular floors seems to be far preferable than doing what others say we should do - or spending daft sums of money on what they want us to believe will make a massive difference to the sound!

I think I'll get some thick slate slabs cut to fit the underside of the cabinets and have holes drilled so they can be bolted directly to the speakers (adding 50% to their mass) but also testing using Bluetak between the speaker and slab. I would choose slate over any other stone as it is very dense and has less "ring" than marble or even granite. Peter

 

RE: Bluetack and cinder block, posted on March 3, 2017 at 21:49:17
Satie
Audiophile

Posts: 5426
Joined: July 6, 2002
 Agree about slate, just that it is flaky to deal with. I bought a couple of packs of cut slate tiles that I selected for lack of ringing when tapped by a small steel rod for damping purposes.

Spiking is a better method of transferring energy to the slate because of the high pressure contact at the spike. Bolting slate to anything is a difficult proposition and it will fall apart that way, just crumble around the bolt due to the high vibration energy. It has a layered structure and you want to transmit energy to the top layer and have it absorbed into the structure rather than transmit to the structure via the bolt, or the area under the nut that has been weakened by drilling the hole for the bolt.

As Josh suggests, the issue is that each location type requires different strategies. Each type of floor and support structure requires its own particular solution.

Absorption with pliant materials is a good damping method if you can fix one side to a stationary mass. Otherwise it is just another mass being vibrated. It will reduce vibration but not nearly as much as when it is used as a constrained layer in the support. An example of this is with a friend's planar box speaker that had a lively cabinet even after applying gobs of soundcoat damping. The solution we came up with was to build an external box for 3 sides of the speaker and the bottom made of corian and fill the spaces between the boxes with a compliant setting material (bitumen based).. Deadened the bass section. The top section was left on its own to avoid diffraction near the tweeter, so had a bolt run through it with neoprene under the nuts. Now it is amazing.

 

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