It’s a long flight from Oakland, CA to Washington D.C. especially when you can’t get a direct flight. Even with the long flight though, there were several reasons why I wanted to go to the Capital Audiofest. High on the list was to hear Dave Slagle’s redesigned Quad Stacked ESL Loudspeakers in the EMIA Audio room.
As I mentioned in a post a couple of days ago, I owned Quads from the time I was 18 until I was in my late 20s, and for most of that time, I had stacked Quads. My expectations of how an audio system should sound, will always be influenced by the sound of those stacked Quad ESLs.
Dave’s Stacked Quads
Dave’s stacked Quads are nothing like the ones I owned. They have been totally redesigned. The only thing he uses from the original Quads are the electrostatic panel parts rebuilt to original standards by Wayne Picquet of Quads Unlimited. The wooden side rails and supports are made from a solid piece of tiger maple and built by Andy Armstrong. They are bi-amped using two push-pull 300B tube amps, mounted in the speaker’s base. Also mounted in the base are Dave’s own wound step-up transformers that directly connect the amps to the electrostatic panels.
The step-up transformer for the tweeter panels uses an 80 percent nickel core and all-silver windings. The step-up transformer for the bass panels uses nanocrystalline cores and silver windings. Dave said these speakers are made-to-order, and they start at $50,000 a pair. The stacked pair that I heard at CAF was $115,000.
The Rest of the System
The source for this system was a restored, vintage grease-bearing Garrard 301 turntable with two tonearms; one from Schroeder and the other from Thomas Schick. The mono and stereo field coil cartridges, that’s right I said field coils, were built from scratch by Dave. The rest of the electronics were from EMIA.
Credit where Credit is Due
Even though the EMIA electronics are new, they are created using a vintage design. In many ways, this system is an attempt to build a “no-holds-barred” vintage system. I have to give Dave credit for having the vision to see what could be done with these products.
I also have to give Dave credit for putting together a system with amazing sound. There was more bass than I would have ever dreamed could come from full-ranged electrostatic speakers. In fact, if my memory serves me well, the sound is even more transparent than the original Quad ESL speakers. Yes, there were systems at this show that had a better soundstage, had more detail, and could play louder. While those are all things we aim for, there were only a few that could sound this much like music!
