Quad 2905 versus Quad 2805 plus subwoofer

I have 2805's (after half a life with the ESL 57's) because I could not accommodate the 2905's. If you can, my advise would be to go for the 2905's. However, with a good subwoofer the bass of the 2805's can be remedied to a large extent. I recently bought the new and reputedly ultra clean and fast B&W PV1d (connected at speaker level), and after a bit of tinkering the sound is well integrated. B&W's default suggestion to match the Quads was too overpowering, however. I lowered crossover to 34 HZ (rather than 37 HZ), set the slope of the low pass filter to 24 db, and lowered sensitivity to 82 db (rather than the recommended 86 db). This maintains the integrity of the glorious 2805's without any smearing or woolliness, and yet it adds a new dimension to music with deep bass, such as organ. My biggest remaining concern is not the integration with the Quad's, but on the one hand the match with the room (even though large, with a high ceiling and a mostly concrete construction), and on the other hand the varying quality of recordings. I now discover that unlike most classical recordings quite a few rock and some jazz recordings have artificial bass boost to make them sound better on indifferent systems. For best room integration I also auditioned the Velodyne Ultra series, but these did not integrate quite so well with the 2805's, at least when I heard them.

I need to update my earlier post( March,2007) in which I had mentioned some reservations/doubts about pairing subs with the 2905s. I have been running my 2905s with a pair of REL 505s for over 5 years and couldn't be happier. There are absolutely no issues regd. smearing etc . My room is approx 14'x23' with a 10' ceiling which opens into a smaller 400sq ft space. If at all I would like to upgrade the REL 505s to the G1s.
Cheers

To Willemj: Hi, I'm also matching my electrostatics (in this case Soundlabs) with DIY open baffle woofer towers.
I'm curious about the sound of your system. Maybe the insights derived from listening to your system can be of additional value in the process of finetuning (of my own system).
Do you live in The Netherlands?

Chris

Yes I live in the Netherlands. In the meantime i have lowered the crossover further to 33 Hz and increased volume to 83db sensitivity. This makes the sub disappear just a tiny bit more. As I said, integration with the Quads is now fine. Integration with the room remains a bit of an issue, especially at lower frequencies. And that is with a (beautifully reconditioned) Quad 33/303 amplifyer with a low cut filter that removes all the really low frequency junk.

My experience with the sub has persuaded my that subs do indeed have undesirable issues with room acoustics. I can make those tolerable by turning down the sub as I did, but that almost defeats the purpose of the exercise. So I am now considering an Anti-mode 8033 room equalization system. I would be interested if there are people who have used one with a system like mine.
Willem