Quads and Plinths

Here is another picture of two of the plinths we listend to.  The idea was to use the same 301, Schroeder arm and cartridge and simply move them from table to table.  The arm is mounted on a "pod" that has no connection to the plinth so it can be "hotswapped" ala the Lab 47 arm.  The Two plinths pictured are a solid maple one and one from delignit.  Each plinth had its own character and more time is needed to get the "sounds" of each sorted out.

Speaking of the sound, the system we were listening to was also unique to say the least.  It consisted of 3 pair of Quad ESL 57's arranged in an interesting manner.  Two of the units were stacked and facing outward and a single unit was traditionally placed facing the listener.  To make things even more interesting the three units per side were wired in series to net a 48 ohm load and were driven by vintage PP triode amps (Leak, Beam Echo, Marantz 9's and some sid smith 300B's).

The sound is unlike any quads I have heard.  We know all of the words to politely describe Quads and this setup has them all and then you must add the words Big and Dynamic!  We were somewhat limited in how loud we could go by the 15W amps but it was still shocking how different it sounded than a pair of single '57's.  More to come.....