The Saga of the Quests

Speaker Asylum

General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

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My Experience with the Martin Logan Quest-Z speakers
When I brought these home, I assumed I had regained a bit of the audiophile heaven that I had lost when I was unable to use my Accoustat 2 + 2 speakers in the apartment I had moved into. (Ceilings are too low.)
So it was with great joy that I set up the speakers and began to play music through them. If there could have been a placebo effect involved in having new audio gear, I was ripe for it. I wanted these speakers to sound great. I was willing to forgive them any short coming. Or so I thought.
At first the sound was glorious: open, airy, spacious like the Accoustats I loved so well. I was pleased. But after a few songs, I noticed the bass was very weak. Actually nigh to non-existant. Oh well, perhaps my 70 wpc Cary tube amps just couldnâ€™t handle the load. No problem. I plugged in a Dynaco ST-70 35 wpc from my office and bi amplified.
Now the bass was bloated and heavy. Thumpy, chesty, tubby were the words that applied. I called my dealer and he suggested a solid state amp that could be adjusted for volume. I drove down and picked up a Chinese integrated amp and ran the signal from my Quicksilver pre amp into it. With a bit of testing I settled on a volume setting that seemed to produce just enough but not too much bass.
I invited a friend over and we settled into a serious listening session. I played some Chopin piano music by Rubenstein. Very good on my Audio Physic Sparks (the speakers I was trading in) but glorious on the Quests. So far so good.
Then I put on one of my favorites, the song â€œColumbusâ€ from an album by Mary Black. Her voice was wonderful, open and airy through the Quests, but the deep bass line from this song sounded badly disconnected. I describe this as a bass that hums along with the music. Not exactly what I want to hear from a speaker. It was irritating and annoying. On the Sparks the sound was not glorious but very good all the way through the sound spectrum. They are a well balanced speaker. Their bass was strong and well integrated.
Finally we tried some Johnny Cash and the discontinuity of the Quests stood out even more strongly. His voice was lovely in the upper registers; but when he hit a deep bass note it was as if it came from a completely different speaker (which in fact it did given that the woofers are separate from the treble panels). The effect was distressing and unmusical.
I tried turning the bass down further but when I got to the point that the bass was no longer a problem, there was no more bass left! Though several members have suggested that the Quest woofers need lots of power, it seemed to me that I couldn't reduce the power enough. (Also I do not playing at crashingly loud sound levels.)
Bottom line: though the Sparks do nothing gloriously, they do everything well. Itâ€™s possible to relax and fall into just listening to the music. The Quests do the treble magnificently; but the discontinuity with the bass is too intrusive to overlook. Rather than relax, you anticipate the next bass note and the thumpy sound itâ€™s going to create and thatâ€™s just no fun.
So back to the dealer go the Quests and the borrowed amp and the old Audio Physics return to their honored place.

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Topic - The Saga of the Quests - Laszlo 21:59:51 04/05/07 (0)

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