New Quadraspire

Posted by: Jez Quigley on 22 June 2001

Anyone seen (in flesh or photo) the new quadraspire? or read anything about it?, better still tested it? Know how much it will cost?

There is no mention of it on their site.

Posted on: 22 June 2001 by Steve Toy

Just to keep this topic close to the top of the first page, I'll ask later today. I'm going to email you to give you the contact number for your answer, as I have already been told but I can't remember exactly.....

Steve.

Posted on: 25 June 2001 by Frank Abela

Had the Reference in last week. Good sides and bad sides. Did some great round-earth stuff. Seemed to have deleterious effects on flat-earth stuff. Not convinced. We'll probably play with it again sometime, but at the moment we advocate the use of Audiofile bases on the standard rack as a better solution.

I also understand that price is under review.

Regards,
Frank.

Posted on: 25 June 2001 by Tony L

quote:
Having heard prototypes of the reference stand, your comments surprise me.

Me too. To my ears the "Larried" Quadraspire fixes the vast majority of what is broken about the sound of conventional Quadraspire. For me the original stand enabled music to flow nicely, but was so tonally horrible in a boxy, compressed and 'wooden' way that it just annoyed me. The Larry mods keep the flow, but do not hinder instrument timbre and acoustic space the way the original stand seems to. I like the prototype stand I heard a lot, and would definitely take it over Hutter (no contest, I just don't like Hutter!), though almost certainly not against Mana. Fraim is too dear to take remotely seriously, so the Larried Quadraspire would so far be my non-ferrous stand of choice.

Frank, I assume you set it up right - the prototype was installed in quite a non-rigid manner, this seems part of the design. The joints are not done up tightly at all, so the whole stand sort of flops about a bit…

Tony.

Posted on: 26 June 2001 by Tony L

quote:
You haven't heard the half of it!

Go on then, what be the gossip?

Tony.

Posted on: 26 June 2001 by Jez Quigley

While we wait for the new quadraspire to appear we can make this into a 'why the fraim is too bloody dear' thread. I have 9 boxes to support. Unless I did silly things like put the pre-amp next to the hi-cap that means I need 9 shelves. The maximum is 6 + the base. Therefore I would need 2 bases, a stack with 3 shelves, and a stack with 4 shelves i.e. £3200 worth. If I changed the 250 to go active with 135's and associated xovers I would need at least 3 stacks.

I would love to have Naim supports (and so would the majority of Naim owners I suspect), even at a price, but as things 'stand' (tee hee)it is totally impractical and financially non-sensical.

Paul, how about a 4 to 5 tier 'Nait' version (performance/simplicity, price level)of the fraim that is wide enough for 2 full size boxes to go comfortably side by side?

You would sell them by the skip load, and we would be happy, happy, happy.

Posted on: 26 June 2001 by Rico

quote:
Paul, how about a 4 to 5 tier 'Nait' version (performance/simplicity, price level)of the fraim that is wide enough for 2 full size boxes to go comfortably side by side?

Oh what next, Jez? a 82/180 in one box ?

Rico - all your base are belong to us.

Posted on: 26 June 2001 by ken c

hi folks,

is this new quadraspire from the makers or is this is a larry tweak? i am a bit lost i am afraid. i cannot see any new rack announcement on the QS web site.

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 26 June 2001 by Jez Quigley

I'm told it is an official quadraspire product, but as you say, there is no mention of it on the site. Possibly they dont want to stall sales of the existing tables until it is in full production.

Rico, There you have me. I was thinking of a multi-changer CDSII/52/super/500 all in one 'silver' plastic box with tiny dbl's that clip on the sides that I could take to the beach, and hide behind the sofa when at home. Great for my collection of 2 CDs - Dire Straits and the Eagles greatest hits, and space for if I ever buy another one.

Posted on: 27 June 2001 by ken c

is the old quadraspire rack uogradable to the new reference?? if so, for how much. many thanks

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 28 June 2001 by Frank Abela

Tony

The table was setup by QS themselves. My comments were based on initial findings with them having set it up for us. In theory, the Reference (a development over and above the Audio Counsel item) should provide a substantial improvement over the standard item. We now have a Reference of our own to play with. Opinions are split about its performance. It's very good in some ways and less good in others. As you can see, we're still playing with it - I'll be relaying our findings as we go along, but we're also messing around with setup.

We find the Audiofile bases in the standard QS to be a good compromise since they relieve some of that boxiness you speak of.

Regards,
Frank.

Posted on: 03 July 2001 by Jez Quigley

There is a review of the new Quadraspire in this months 'Hi-Fi Choice' along with a few other racks. The photo alongside the review looks very like the existing Quadraspire 'AV' table. Can anyone confirm that?, or were Hi-Fi Choice too lazy/incompetent to get a photo of the new table?