Quad ELS 2905
Price £7000 pair Black Finish
Price £7500 pair Classique finish
The Classique finish was originally designed for Hollywood legend Jackie Chan
QUAD’s ELS 2905 loudspeaker marks the pinnacle of achievement for QUAD’s range of electrostatic loudspeakers.
Hi-Fi News magazine on the front cover of their October 2006 issue heralded, QUAD’s ESL 2905 as the “21st century electrostatic, Quad’s finest speaker ever?”
The story behind the new ELS 2905 and the smaller ESL 2805 will live in the hall of hi-fi history for many years. Following a visit to Alastair Robertson-Aikman (founder of SME and long time enthusiast and “tweaker” of the QUAD ESL 63), Dave Patching and one of Quad’s engineers to hear A R-A’s heavily modified ESL-63’s they came away with a realisation that the ESL 988 and 989 designs were capable of delivering so much more. As a direct result of this visit the Quad design team carried out some very significant modifications. Unable to produce a loudspeaker of the weight of A R-A’s heavily modified ESL 63’s (200/300 kg or more), Quad concentrated on improving the rigidity of the support frame, the most visible part of which is the full height strut running from the top of the speaker to the bottom of the base plate.Additional mass loading of the speakers base plinth is the addition of a 8 kg metal slab that slides in between the substantial floor spikes and the base of the loudspeaker. Gone are the plastic top caps of the 988 and 989’s replaced with a solid steel top brace capped with trim finished in a black lacquer. The standard finish is with a black cloth trim to the panel and silver aluminium side rails.
The main difference between the 2905 and the 2805 is in the number of bass panels used. The 2905 comprises of four bass panels compared to the 2805’s two, hence the increase in height. The Quad electrostatics generally require to be charged for at least 1 hour from cold, although we prefer to leave our demonstration pair switched on at all times. With regard to positioning the loudspeakers, they are not to fussy about placement near to a side wall, but generally require a minimum of 2ft behind them. More critical is the amount of toe in that the speaker requires, generally between 5 - 20 degrees is recommended by Quad, with a minimum of 2.5 meters between their inner edges, however many of our customers and our own experience shows that great results can be obtained with separations between 1.5m and 2.5m.
Ken Kessler’s review in Hi-Fi News, October 2006 summed up the Quad ESL 2905’s - “As of now, though the Quad ESL-2905 is the most seamless loudspeaker I have ever heard. It is to the original ESL what a Ferrari 599 is to a 1953 250MM: pure to the spirit, but updated in every important way.” Ken in his review gave the ESL2905 a rating of 20/20, one of the highest ratings ever given by Hi-Fi News!
