New Audio addition to the family Quad ESL 57’s.

[wdc 172]

Well I have had a hankering to buy a new set of speakers oflate and finally after considering many different makes and model, decided togo vintage with a pair of Quad ESL 57’s.

Anticipating this purchase  I picked up before Christmas , a pair of clean copper grills, while planning a total restoration.  I will listen to them for a month or so and then send them off to be restored.  

 

I’ll post a photo of the actual speakers once received. 

 

 

 

The new grills

 

 

[oldtexasdog 2,481]

I believe sea had a pair of those at CF17 and they just blew me away!!! And I am a B&W lover!!

 

Are you sending them to  Sheldon Stokes? I believe sea said that's who redid his and he said Sheldon specializes in the Quad ESL's

 

Congrats on acquiring some great ones!

[Magnaryder 757]

I'm SOOOO fucking jealous, my EAR was designed to power that speaker. So far I've had to settle for my Spatial M3 Holograms. Ed (SEA) was gracious enough to allow me to put my V20 on his Quads. It was magical. One of these years I'll find a nice pair.  

 

ray 

[Sk1Bum 12,431]

Those are absolutely beautiful.

[trav0810 588]

Congrats! Those are a beautiful sounding speaker.

[jazzman53 1,280]

Congrats Will, 

Not many people can say they own a pair of ESL 57's!  Still magic after all these years... 

[wdc 172]

I'm SOOOO phuking jealous, my EAR was designed to power that speaker. So far I've had to settle for my Spatial M3 Holograms. Ed (SEA) was gracious enough to allow me to put my V20 on his Quads. It was magical. One of these years I'll find a nice pair.  

 

ray 

 

 My plan was to pair them up with a Marantz 8B (bucket list amp I’ll pick up) but the EAR was mentioned as a magical pairing, Amp for Quad ESL 57.

 

The Quad 303 "bread loaf"  wasalso recommended as an inexpensive but good pair

 

Has anybody paired this speaker with Carver amps, I was wondering how it would work with the 9t’s?

[wdc 172]

I believe sea had a pair of those at CF17 and they just blew me away!!! And I am a B&W lover!!

 

Are you sending them to  Sheldon Stokes? I believe sea said that's who redid his and he said Sheldon specializes in the Quad ESL's

 

Congrats on acquiring some great ones!

 

My plan was to ship them off to Kent McCollum with Electrostatic Solutions, but a couple other names came up while reading the Amp for Quad ESL 57 forum that I want to explore.  I planned on running them for 2 or 3 months and then having a full restoration done to them, along with any recommended mods.

 

I will look into Sheldon Strokes, thanks

 

Thanks for the congrats, I actually stumbled across the speaker and the more I read about it the more I liked realizing I had to have them

 

Cheers 

[Ar9Jim 6,519]

Thanks for sharing. Heard those at CF2017. Very nice legendary audiophile speakers.. Like OTD said, sea has a beautiful pair and you guys would likely enjoy talking Quads..

[sea 679]

Hi,

 

Sheldon did a great job on mine. I actually sent him the panels and electronics and did the disassembly and reassembly myself. This saved a little money and was far easier to ship. They are fantastic speakers even compared to modern options. The fact that they were designed in 1957 and were basically unchanged during their long production run is astounding.

 

Many do not realize these were sold before stereo was common. They were sold as individual speakers.

 

I hope you enjoy!

 

Ed

[iamjohngalt 2,771]

Those will be amazing speakers! Congrats on a fantastic speaker choice!

[loner_t 2,571]

THIS is an intriguing pair listed on eBay. The seller seems fairly knowledgeable as well. 

 

 

2) Knowledgeable Owner: this is the seventh pair of Quad 57's I currently own.  Four sets have been rebuilt by Kent McColumb at Electrostatic Solutions, one set was purchased with a Quads Unlimited rebuild and two sets are completely stock.  I also have two sets of -63's (one listed here for sale), also upgraded by ESS.  I've owned Quad speakers for over three decades.  At present, I'm fixated on collecting every amp that works with the '57. So far I have "the usual suspects": Bedini 25/25 [anyone out there wanna sell me a 10/10?], Mark Levinson ML-2, Krell KSA-50-II, Aleph 3, Music Reference RM-10, Quad II [both in stock and fully rebuilt versions], Quad 303 [still scratching my head at how darn good that stupid thing is], Futterman H3aa [completely rebuilt] and even the brand new Pass Labs XA25.  I mention all of these amps to show that I know how to treat these speakers.  No experiments with 6,000-Watt public address amps or voodoo crossovers to bi-, tri-amp them or heaven knows what.  The speakers are in a dedicated temperature- and humidity-controlled room with absolutely no natural sunlight intruding.  And as the last photo shows, I even cover the speakers when not in use.

 

THIS is another pair. 

 

Ed's 57s at CF2017 sounded fantastic. 

 

 

[wdc 172]

I just picked up another panel to have as parts, ect. Looks to be complete and in good shape and the tears they mention appear to be the dust covers not the Mylar.

 

Vtg Quad ESL 57 Electrostatic Loudspeaker - For Parts or Repair

 

Fortunately, my son lives in the Denver area and will pick it up for me.

 

Interesting thing about this speaker is the date code. My reading of the SN 447 making the unit 1958 first year run of the Quad 57

 

Quad ESL Serial Numbers