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Sealed subwoofer for ESL-63

I am looking for owners who have successfully integrated their QUAD ESL 63s with a subwoofer.

I recently bought a used pair of QUAD ESL63 and had them rebuilt, panels and electronics, this is my third pair. I have had several monkey boxes in between - Aerial 10T, B&W, KEF, IMF, Tannoys, Proac, Goldmund, Falcon Acoustics kits, etc - but the 63s are very hard to live without when you know what they can do.

My problem is that I am particularly fond of large-scale symphonic works such as Wagner’s The Ring , Beethoven, Mahler, Strauss, etc. but the 63s are very special and very frustrating used full range, they have limited bass and dynamics.

I am retired now and have a fixed income so I cannot keep doing what I did for fifty years, buy, experiment, trade and sell.

I would like to keep the cost of the sub to $1K max for a good condition, one owner unit.

Best regards,
f456gt

Showing 2 responses by georgehifi

georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
It’s all about getting the two different masses to behave as close as possible at the xover point.

For a sub to react as fast as an esl-63 at the xover point, it needs to have a reactance speed as close as possible to the speed of the 63’s at 80hz which has virtually no mass, hence the smaller lighter diaphragm/s sub driver/s will be closer, and to help them even more, a servo feedback will help again.

Cheers George
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
Quad Esl 63’s are fast, to mate a sub well to them they have to be fast also. A well designed sealed sub with less than 10" drivers and with motional feedback would be the way to go, 12" or bigger and or ported tend to be slower and harder to mate with ESL’s

There is a sleeper of old that will suit and are very cheap s/h, and that’s believe it or not is a pair of old Yamaha YST-SW160’s or the more powerfull YST-SW305’s. These both use twin 8" drivers are are motional feedback controlled, and use linear amps, even though ported they are very fast and no doof doof sound, IE: accurate and detailed. They don’t go super low, but low enough to concuss the air in the room when needed.

Don’t bother with anything else from Yamaha, it’s all doof doof rubbish. Just the YST-SW160 or YST-SW305

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Yamaha-YST-SW305-Powered-Subwoofer-/152465943812?hash=item237fadad04:g:ngwAAOSwfVpYwUOg

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Yamaha-YST-SW305-Powered-Subwoofer-/272614685088?hash=item3f7919f9a0%3Ag%3AmbYAAOSwSlBY4EN-&nma=true&si=8Ky05RR7e8dObTLZM9O%252FuVNMmLI%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557



Cheers George
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