Home Speaker Asylum

General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

Re: Quad Speakers

I find that given a reasonably 'good' speaker and I don't want to go into the infinitely long discussion of what that means other than the classic low coloration and decent bandwidth and transients, the factors that seem to make a speaker sound live to me are linear changes in dynamics. The accuracy of the level changes is important to me. And there is the problem of the software. If it's compressed in any way like a lot of software is, it complicates judgements on the hardware. But I do feel that I get a sense of the dynamics from a good deal of the software. That means both macro and micro and I suspect the micro may be the more important of the two. Most speakers sound like wide bandwidth radios to me, they seem to compress everything even at low levels. Playing very loud tells very little. It may be loud but perhaps it should be even louder but how do you know when ones ears are already overloded.

And I'm still not convinced the Quads do very well at linear dynamics except at very low overall levels. I certainly respect David Chesky. The quality of his recordings can't really be questioned. But I stil have doubts about his statements. Experience and reputation increase the probability of ones statements being accurate; they don't guarantee it.

For what it's worth, I was a bit leary of writing my first comments. It's always dangerous to pick on a icon such as the Quads and especially perilous to pick on one that deserves to be an icon like the Quad. I do have tremendous respect for it. I have held back on many other audio icons for just that reason.


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