19-Mar-2017, 23:14
Fascinating info Peter, and much of it sounds familiar to me.
I have 1x D-Prem + Quad ESL2905 + REL Studio III and for me, the system is nirvana. I owned the ESLs before the DP and was always floored by their qualities when driven by Quad's own amps, and more so when driven by the likes of Boulder/Krell/Levinson, but it took the DP to reveal what they're really capable of, which is, frankly, on a completely different level.
This combination ended upgraditis completely, and I've just been enjoying the music for the last 5 years. I do have to disagree with you though that the REL adds no bass. In the region 16-32Hz (bottom octave of a large pipe organ, orchestral bass drum, but little else) it adds a lot, but in a completely musical way, and fast enough to keep up with the Quads, which is where subwoofers usually fail. As you say, the midrange improvement is remarkable also - but only when the REL ABC adjustment is done so as to make the sub "disappear"
I also tried the line-level drive for the REL, with and without rolling off the bass to the ESLs, and like you found it far inferior to the REL-recommended speaker-level connection.
I have the ABC upper roll-off on the Studio III set to the minimum frequency, and the gain turned up accordingly. This works best in my room and with the bass of the ESLs, which is plentiful.
I don't really have any urge to upgrade this system, but from comments you made elsewhere on this forum it seems the biggest step up would be to go to ESL2912, then to 2 X DP (assuming shared-negative + half signal for the 3-wire REL feed works) before upgrading to 250Pro. If indeed, I still can.....
I have 1x D-Prem + Quad ESL2905 + REL Studio III and for me, the system is nirvana. I owned the ESLs before the DP and was always floored by their qualities when driven by Quad's own amps, and more so when driven by the likes of Boulder/Krell/Levinson, but it took the DP to reveal what they're really capable of, which is, frankly, on a completely different level.
This combination ended upgraditis completely, and I've just been enjoying the music for the last 5 years. I do have to disagree with you though that the REL adds no bass. In the region 16-32Hz (bottom octave of a large pipe organ, orchestral bass drum, but little else) it adds a lot, but in a completely musical way, and fast enough to keep up with the Quads, which is where subwoofers usually fail. As you say, the midrange improvement is remarkable also - but only when the REL ABC adjustment is done so as to make the sub "disappear"
I also tried the line-level drive for the REL, with and without rolling off the bass to the ESLs, and like you found it far inferior to the REL-recommended speaker-level connection.
I have the ABC upper roll-off on the Studio III set to the minimum frequency, and the gain turned up accordingly. This works best in my room and with the bass of the ESLs, which is plentiful.
I don't really have any urge to upgrade this system, but from comments you made elsewhere on this forum it seems the biggest step up would be to go to ESL2912, then to 2 X DP (assuming shared-negative + half signal for the 3-wire REL feed works) before upgrading to 250Pro. If indeed, I still can.....
1000 Pro / Magico A5 / REL Studio III
