Chuffed to bits!

[DrMartin]

After all the hassle with the new Audiolab amps etc over Christmas, my new Quad 99 pre and 909 power arrived today.

They sound superb (to my ears) straight out of the box! I cannot believe the difference between these and those Audiolab amps which were just chronically harsh and toppy.

I always thought I couldn't get decent bass in my listening area but it's there now, even with all the EQ off.

Given that they are brand new and will probably (hopefully?) sound even better after a few days running-in I'm over the moon.

Now, of course, my journey begins. Now that I know I can get decent bass AND imaging in that space I wont be able to stop myself from wanting more of everything.

I think the weakest link in the system at the moment is the speakers: Mission 753 freedoms. They can punch quite hard and are nice and tight in the bass when required but I think the imaging must suffer a bit from having 5 drive units per cabinet? What do you guys think about that? I also think I would prefer a soft-domed tweeter rather than a metal one.

 

[RobHolt]

The Freedom version of the 753 should have a soft dome tweeter.
Standard 753s had the metal tweeter.

Metal domes get a bad press for some strange reasons, and again like so much in audio, the description of harsh and bright tends to fit the looks and material used rather than their true performance IMO.
They are usually far cleaner with less break-up than soft domes where it actually matters, which are by comparison often a collection of resonances damped with gunk to give you a fairly flat line. The damping is just hiding pretty poor underlying performance.
Metals have a spike at the very top and bottom of their range and are usually very clean between the two peaks. If the crossover is decent the lower spike should be well out of band and the one at the top should be out above 20khz.

The 753 (both versions) are excellent.
Not all 5 bass drivers operate in the midband, so you effectively have a 2-way with additional bass capability.

 

[DrMartin]

Thanks for that Rob, that's interesting. My 753s are definitely the later freedom version. I have to admit that I don't actually know what the tweeter dome is made from but it looks and feels like very thin plastic - which I assumed was some sort of ultra-thin metal.

I did know about the 'two and half' way set up of the four main drivers and again I thought that maybe having the two mids would make the imaging less focussed than a single driver?

I have to say though, I am so pleased with the way it's all sounding now. It really has been one of those 'night and day' experiences. I'd pretty much given up on ever being able to have a system that I could really enjoy but now I've got my enthusiam back.

 

[RobHolt]

Thanks for that Rob, that's interesting. My 753s are definitely the later freedom version. I have to admit that I don't actually know what the tweeter dome is made from but it looks and feels like very thin plastic - which I assumed was some sort of ultra-thin metal.

I did know about the 'two and half' way set up of the four main drivers and again I thought that maybe having the two mids would make the imaging less focussed than a single driver?

I have to say though, I am so pleased with the way it's all sounding now. It really has been one of those 'night and day' experiences. I'd pretty much given up on ever being able to have a system that I could really enjoy but now I've got my enthusiam back.

No problem.

I'm pretty sure that only one of those bass drivers covers the portion of the upper mid that would be of concern re imaging.
Its actually a nicely sorted and dynamic speaker IMO.

All of the 75 series from that period were good.

 

[zanash]

glad to hear you like the quads ...always be a fav of mine

 

[DrMartin]

Thanks. I was surprised to find out from the user's guide that they also do a 909 mono power amp rated at 300W into 8 ohms. I knew about the 99 series mono, ie the small one, but had no idea that there was a 909 mono power. Now I would imagine that a couple of those would be quite special?

I haven't tried mine with the supplied Quadlink cable between pre & power yet. It's supposed to be a balanced connection, as opposed to the unbalanced RCA jacks that I'm currently using with an old Cable Talk interconnect. It will be interesting to compare the two when I've got a bit more time but I'm put off the Quadlink cable, because it looks just like an old computer cable with not much in the way of screening.