Coherent top to bottom sound, non-fatiguing, punch well above their price weight

RELIABILITY ! Made in China .......... Rating reduction from 5 stars to 3 stars is purely because of need to have both speakers fully replaced after only 3 months.

I have recently taken delivery of my new QUAD ESL 2905's (June 2007). I have auditioned speakers extensively over the past 3 years in my search for the perfect speaker and tried Watt Puppy 7's and 8's, Revel Salons, Dynaudio Evidence Temptations, Magnepan 20.1s etc etc ..... the list goes on.

When I came across the 2905's back in June 2007 I auditioned in awe. They remain the most coherent and seamless speaker I have heard ...... and they have REAL bass. I have long dismissed electrostats because they had no bass ........ but the 2905's have redefined for me what true palpable bass is. It's a truly integrated speaker from top to bottom. It is effortless and entirely non-fatiguing.

To answer an earlier thread about whether vocals sound more forward on the 2905's than others my view is no. The vocals sound right ..... but then so too does every other part of it's frequency re-production. There is beautiful separation and 'air' between instruments and vocals which makes them 'right'. They are superb ..... but there is a catch that will not please many.

I am now on my 2nd pair of 2905s after the first pair (then only 3 months old) had a panel failure of some sort. I began noticing huge differences between speaker sensitivities that made correct imaging and soundstaging impossible. And then, to make things worse, I lost most of the bass response from both speakers.

To Quads credit they did provide a brand new replacement pair which I received 3 weeks ago (September 2007) and which are now burning in nicely.

Recent experiences on the web suggest this is not an isolated case and panel failures in the 2905s and 2805's have been recorded elsewhere. So reliability is clearly an issue with this speaker and I remain nervous that the same type of failure will happen again and I'll need to spend another 12 weeks waiting for a new pair.

So ........... yes, they are a stunning speaker (regardless of price) and compete with units 5x their price. But the "Made in China" thing has clearly affected reliability.

Ken Kessler of "HiFi News" in the UK gave these speakers a "20/20, Best Speaker on the Planet" review back in 2006. My listening experiences are almost consisitent with those in his review, including his lab report findings that suggest he also experienced sensitivity differences with his audition pair. What I wasn't expecting was the 5-7 dB of sensitivity differences that I experienced which is, well, kind of important.

But I also note that Ken Kessler wrote the glossy "History of QUAD" book that accompanied my 2905s when they came delivered in their "bigger then mankind" cardboard boxes ........ so I therefore remain sceptical about Kens impartiaility and objectivity in his scoring of these speakers. If Ken knew how unreliable they are now proving to be, he wouldn't be giving them 20/20 !

It's food for thought and I'm happy to answer questions on my ongoing impressions of my (now 2nd) pair of 2905s.

Customer Service

So far so good but if these units fail again I'll ask for a full refund and buy something else.

STUNNING STUNNING STUNNING !!!! After 5 years of "cone kicking" every nameplate loudspeaker in the universe across 5 countries, I have finally purchased what I never thought I would .... electrostatics !

My wife and I now live in Western Australia but have auditioned many systems over the years in our quest for audio nirvana ...... Dynaudio Evidence Temptations (at The Adelphi, Singapore) for ~US$40k, Watt Puppy 7 and 8's for ~US$27k, the new Jamo 909s for ~US$15k, the new Von Schweikert VR-5SEs for ~US$23k, Eidolon Diamonds for ~US$35k, Martin Logan Odysseys etc etc ..... you name it, we've heard it.

Despite each of these speakers having strengths in certain areas, all were aggravating or compromised in some way ......
Dynaudio Evidence Ts: needed power and only came to life at higher volumes (7/10),
Watt Puppy 8's: still have that tiny sweet spot and that screechy metal dome Focal tweeter that cuts like a knife when you least expect it to (even improved crossovers from the 7s can't fix that, 8/10),
Eidolons: sometimes sound awefully lean and seem to only come alive with high end high powered Spectral amplifiers (7/10)
VS VR5-SE's had silky smooth highs because of Scanspeak revelator tweeter but bass seemed somewhat contrived and overdone (8/10)
Sonus Faber Stradivari Homage: As close to perfection as I've heard ..... until I heard the 2905s ! (9/10).

..... electrostatics were never even on our radar ..... but the ESL 2905's have changed everything ..... and I suspect permanently (11/10). They are without doubt the most coherent, transparent, seamless, dynamic, rhythmic and engaging loudspeaker I have ever heard - entirely non-fatiguing despite extended listening sessions with none of that cabinet colouration that seems to plague even the best cabinet speakers for a part of their frequency range. Until we heard the 2905s we were never really aware of cabinet colouration because there were no alternate benchmarks that caused us to question it ...... until now.

And get this ...... THE 2905s DO BASS ! There is a purity and rightness to it that defies belief. If you want the last 99/100's of ultimate slam then buy a cabinet speaker but be prepared to accept compromises in every other part of the frequency range. In fact, don't read my review any further. Everything I want to say about this loudspeaker has been precisely expressed in the UK's HiFi News magazine (Oct 2006 edition) by Ken Kessler who awarded this speaker a perfect 20/20 score and claimed these to be the best speaker on the planet .... I won't refute it.

These speakers are so damn human ..... there is texture, there is space, there is separation between instruments, there is rhythm, voices are organic, soundstage is ummm, well ..... eveywhere in front of me. Where do I stop ???? !!!!!

And to think I'm driving these with a small 100W/ch mid-range hybrid integrated amplifier (Vincent SV-236, tube driver / solid state output) makes me wonder what damage these things will do when we strap on US$30k worth of DAC, pre-amp and tube power amp at the front end (were tossing up a tube system ... perhaps VTL, VAC, Audio Research or Mcintosh .... not sure yet ... will post again at a later stage) ..... my current CD/SACD unit is the Sony SCD-XA777ES (Stereophile Digital Component of the Year 2002 for those interested in "the system")

It is now close to midnight as I write this and singing for me in my home is Joni Mitchell (Both Sides Now) .... I swear shes in the room ! I have lsitened to these speakers at every opportunity in the past 10 days. I have >100 CDs now littering the floor, but each one now feels somehow new. I've discovered a musicality in some CDs that seemed not to exhibit much before. Earlier today Midnight Oil were playing that mind blowing drum solo from "Power and the Passion", Miles Davis was transporting me with "So What" (Kind of Blue), Keb Mo was doing his thing and BB King had a Bad Case of Love (Blues on the Bayou) .......

There is nothing I've been able to throw at these that gems that they've not handled with aplomb. Truly, genuinely, utterely stunning

............. but get the amp right. I think I got lucky with the Vincent - a great match even if only low-end but the amp does trip at high volumes because of the high current draw. Being ESLs with low sensitivity (~80dB) they need decent power for higher volume listening.

NOTE: Price paid is Australian dollars (AUD$14,000) = ~ US$11,000 / pair.