just popped into the local charity shop. monitor audio r352 speakers with stands and cables for £30. £over £300 new a decade and a half ago. also, stack of vinyl not yet on dispaly for £1 each...pristine elvis and limited edition hendrix colour discs. poor old duffer behind the counter took ten minutes to add up 30 and 11 and came to £30, told her it was wrong and gave her £40 and she still tried to give me change! back home, unplugged the quad electrostatics and wired up the wooden boxes. with madonna's spanish eyes track (good recording) they sounded absolutely superb; rich, detailed, bouncy bass, lucid vocal - husky when required. switching back to the quads the differences didn't seem to wholly justify the eleven times price differential (110 in context of the price). strangely it wasn't the vocals where the quads improved upon but the bass - deeper, richer, tighter, blacker, more textured. changing to keb mo with the quads, mo's voicals filled the whole room from back to front and side to side, each breath frighteningly real. strings shimmerd without compression and the purity of the bass attacked my lower sphincter and cerebellum in a pinser movement. with great expectation the monitor audios were re-inserted where they promptly died on their feet. soundstage front to back and side to side shrank and the dynamics almost stopped dead. sigh of relief as order was restored to the universe. dissapointed? for £30 no! no real moral here but i was supposed to spend the whole day gardening.
