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Vandersteen Quattro

What's the buzz about Vandersteen's Quattro? Anybody hear them at CES 2005?

I have my ears on them, because my next pair of speakers will be time and phase aligned. To the best of my knowledge, that doesn't leave too many choices other than the Vandersteen, Meadowlark, and Thiel lines. Je pense le Gallo Reference 3A is time, but not phase, aligned.

Anybody know of other candidates?

Thanks,
Jay

jburidan

Showing 2 responses by sdcampbell

sdcampbell
2,136 posts
 
I can only offer a second-hand comment based on a conversation I had yesterday with Tim Ratcliffe, owner of "Experience Audio" in Seattle, WA. (For Seattle-area audiophiles who are not familiar with Tim's store, I'll quickly mention that his product lines include: electronics from Aesthetix, Audio Research, Plinius, Copland, Gamut, 47 Labs, and Klyne; speakers by Avalon, ProAc, Alon/Nola, and Reference 3M; turntables from VPI, ClearAudio, and Nottingham turntables; cartridges from Grado, ClearAudio, Benz, and DynaVector; cables from Acoustic Zen; power line conditioning from Richard Gray.)

Tim just returned from CES, and he said that he listened at some length to the Quattros and was very impressed with them. He thought the Quattros offered exceptional performance for the money, while also taking up less "air space" than the larger Vandy models.
sdcampbell
2,136 posts
 
Hi, Jeffrey. Not to contradict you, but phase-aligned and time-correct are not the same thing.

When one refers to phase-aligned, it means that all of the drivers in a speaker are wired so they are are in positive phase or negative phase at the same time. Put more simply, all of the drivers are either moving forward (toward the listener) or back (away from the listener) at the same time.

Time-correct means that the wave front generated by each driver arrives simultaneously at the listener's ears. Time-correct speakers normally have a sloping baffle, so the tweeter and mid-range are a few inches further away from the listener's ears than the low-frequency driver. Further, to be time-correct, a speaker must have a first-order crossover (6db slope). There are very few speakers that are both phase-aligned and time-correct, such as Vandersteen, Thiel, Meadowlark, and Dunlavy (now out of business).

Single panel planar or electrostatic speakers are, by their design, always "in phase", since there is only panel, and it can only move in one direction at a time. They may not, however, be "time correct", since high frequency signals propogage faster than low frequency signals. This problem was addressed many years ago by Quad, which designed a concentric area in the middle of the speaker panel that created a radiating wave pattern from the center to the sides of the speaker panel, thereby reducing the tendency for the speaker to "beam" (have a small "sweet spot").

Hope this helps to clarify matters.
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