Posted by Terry (A) on June 22, 2024 at 03:37:49

In Reply to: RE: Quad ESL (57) Stands--Your experiences posted by George S. Roland on June 20, 2024 at 14:25:19

I'm on my third set of the ESLs and I have experimented extensively with various stands and at different heights. The Quads retain their midrange magic regardless of the height used but they loose the coloration through the midbass when they are mounted higher than the peg legs. The early recommendations was to use a height of 10 to 12 inches but more recent recommendations are considerably higher than this. I think Electrostatic Solutions (Kent) makes a custom stand of 17"(?) and that SDS Audio Labs (Sheldon Stokes) is considerably higher (25"). I have mine mounted on custom metal stands, partially filled with lead shot, with a distance of 19" from the floor to the bottom of the speaker. This raises the tweeter panel to about 33" off the floor which is perfect ear/chair height.

One thing to note: Although the quality of the bass improves as you raise the speaker, the perceived quantity of bass definitely decreases. This is not at all surprising as you are reducing the floor bounce effect the higher the speaker is raised. I have added a couple of REL T5X subs to the mix and now have a reasonably flat in-room response (+/-4dB) from 25 Hz to well beyond what my 74 year ears can hear (about 12KHz.).

I have provide a picture of my set up.

I hope this has been helpful.
Terry