Quadraspire QPlus Reference interfaces…….eh?
Posted by: MDS on 22 October 2018
Yes, it’s a bit of a mouthful isn’t it?
In plain-speak they go under the feet of equipment and were, I believe, developed primarily for those people who can’t accommodate dedicated racks and instead have to place their hi-fi boxes on shelves and furniture etc. but want some of the isolation benefits of a rack.
I came to discover this new product when I was contemplating trying a CD555. I have two stacks of Quadraspire SVT with bronze spike upgrades supporting the top shelves on each rack, both of which are bamboo. Experimentation in the past has shown that my pre-amp and its power supply sound best from being sited on the top two shelves were the isolation benefit is greatest. So the prospective arrival of a CD555 presented a problem because it has to be on the top shelve because of its CD lid. This posed a problem as regards the siting of my 552 as we didn’t want to reduce its performance and I didn’t like the prospect of having to change my racks. So my dealer got his thinking cap on and having chatted to his contact at Quadraspire obtained a prototype set of the QPlus ref interfaces to try in my system. I had never heard of them until this point.
Come the day when my dealer brought around the CD555 head-unit for my home demo he also brought with him the prototype QPlus. Before we did anything with the CD555, we played a familiar song on the system ‘as is’ then took out the bamboo SVT with the bronze spikes on my brain rack, put the 552 on the ordinary SVT shelf but with the QPlus under each of its feet (this was achieved in about 30 secs) and then played the song again. Outcome - neither of us could any difference. In other words, the addition of the QPlus had negated the potential deterioration of moving the 552 to a ‘lesser’ shelf. This was a real result because it meant we could then proceed with the installation on the rack of the CD555 for the week’s long demo confident that I would only be hearing the difference that the CD555 made. The consequences of that are described in ‘The benefits of being a dinosaur thread’ so I shall not repeat them here. Suffice to say that I later confirmed I wanted to buy the CD555 head unit and I ordered a set of QPlus Ref to go under the 552. Here’s picture of one under the 552:
Fast forward a week or two and my QPlus arrived. Since I had decided to keep the CD555 my dealer wanted to do a full two-rack rebuild to ensure spacing and cable dressing were optimal. At the end of all that, with the CD555 fully installed and the new set of QPlus under the 552, we sat back and admired and listened to the newly stacked system. Very nice it sounded, too.
But ……there were the prototype QPlus on the carpet, now unused and staring at us. Well, what were we to do? Experiment, of course. Let’s see what if any difference would we hear if we now placed that set under the PSU of the 300? We needed a reference, so LZIII came out and I pressed play on Since I’ve Been Loving You. Sounded great. Then the QPlus went under the feet of the 300PSU. I pressed play again: blimey, listen to that bass guitar! Rather surprised, the QPlus were then removed from under the 300PSU and put instead under the 300 head unit. Pressed play again: now Jimmy Page’s lead guitar sounded better. This is uncanny. I decided I needed another set of QPlus and my dealer left me with the prototype set under the 300’s PSU. After listening for about another hour I concluded I actually needed another two sets. Well, it wouldn’t be fair on the 300 to have only one of its boxes treated to a set, would it?
Being such a new product the extra two sets took a few weeks to arrive. My dealer brought them around straight-away, the whole package from Quadraspire not yet opened. In it was the dealer’s new demo set. So with the two new sets under each box of the 300 in place we listened again. Yep, the cumulative uplift was very nice.
But…. then we noticed the 555PSDR looking at us saying ‘hey, why am I being left out? So the dealer’s brand new demo set were unpacked and popped under the feet of the 555PS. We sat back for another listen. Bl**dy hell! This improvement was even bigger than both sets under the 300!? These things just had no right to provide an uplift of this scale and it was blindingly obvious to both us about 10 secs into track.
The dealer’s demo set didn’t leave the house.
I’ll post a picture of the two stacks with the four sets in place soon so you can see that they are hardly obtrusive. I have no idea of how these QPlus things do what they do. Maybe they’ve got some fairy dust sealed deep within each puck. But I do know that they have significantly improved the performance of all of my black boxes sat on the standard SVT and I can recommend them.
MDS posted:hungryhalibut posted:MDS posted:Ravenswood10 posted:I have the SVT bamboo wall shelf under my LP12 and very good it is too. It also goes very well with my SVT racks of which I have three so no way am I going for Fraims anytime soon. The SVTs also allowed me to fit 3 racks in space between our inglenook fireplace and the wall - something I couldn’t do with Fraims. The SVTs are also considerably easier to dust and I doubt if my ears would frankly detect that the Fraims are ‘just so much better’. Only way to prove that would be a blind listening test
. Luckily I didn’t buy my SVTs on a forum recco or I might have been a bit peeved to read that by implication that they are so much worse than Fraims!
I think someone on here has heard full-fat Fraim against SVT. It might have been The Strat (Fender). IIRC they thought each sounded slightly different but not necessarily 'better'.
Well, that’s not what I found when I made the change. The SVT has many benefits - looks better, smaller, easy to set up, easy to dust - but in terms of pure sound quality it’s not as good. I’m always dubious about adding additional feet and so on in order to optimise sub optimal solutions and would generally rather go for something that works well straight out of the box. Witness the many examples of people adding glass and balls to Quadraspire, Hutter and so on. I’ve done it myself, but now having Fraim it’s nice to have something that is used as standard and where there is no incentive to try to turn it into something else.
Yes, I completely get that feeling, Nigel. It's one of the benefits of having a full (save speakers and racks) Naim system that I very much like ie the knowledge that Naim has done the tweaking and optimising for me. So I can understand why you've taken that final step and changed your rack from SVT to Fraim. But, as I've said earlier, the size of Fraim ruled it out for me.
Now, I wonder if anyone has tried these QPlus Ref on a full-fat Fraim?
As a pertinent follow-up to this earlier exchange with HungryHalibut, I was chatting to my dealer this evening. He'd seen this thread. So I asked, have you tried the QPlus Ref on full-fat Fraim? Yes, was the reply. Tried the prototypes under a Nova and it definitely improved it. Apparently some of the folk at Naim know, too. So, you Fraim converts, maybe that's not as far as you can go?
fatcat posted:If you want to save yourself a bit of money, get down to Lidl and pick up one of these. Just the right size for an LP12.
Or, one of these. Just the right size for a shoebox size amp.
Refreshing
IKEA have some too, not £900 but £12 ????
fatcat posted:If you want to save yourself a bit of money, get down to Lidl and pick up one of these. Just the right size for an LP12.
Or, one of these. Just the right size for a shoebox size amp.
No substitute for a proper blinded trial. All my working life - some 36 years and counting I’ve focused on the evidence - not this subjective nonsense. So let’s have the Lidl option properly evaluated! I’m a Naim convert but please can one really hear polished balls vs tarnished? Common!!!
Perol posted:fatcat posted:If you want to save yourself a bit of money, get down to Lidl and pick up one of these. Just the right size for an LP12.
Refreshing
IKEA have some too, not £900 but £12 ????
???? Perol,....Three in our group have tried IKEA's plate,..both as top-plate on a AudioTech and a Vulkan wall-shelf.
They also modified the IKEA plate in various stages..until they went over the border,and it got worse.
An interesting experiment.
/Peder ????
MDS posted:Here's the two racks with the four sets of QPlus Ref in place. You can also see the bronze spikes and arrangement at the top of both stacks.
Looks fabulous. I like the blingness, not too showey but handsome. I wouldn't be surprised if the combination with footers raises the performance level beyond a full fat Fraim.
What happened to the quadraspire acrylic shelving, they don't seems to supply them any more. I remember attending a quadraspire demo where they demonstrated that acrylic was far superior to wood.
MDS posted:Ravenswood10 posted:I have the SVT bamboo wall shelf under my LP12 and very good it is too. It also goes very well with my SVT racks of which I have three so no way am I going for Fraims anytime soon. The SVTs also allowed me to fit 3 racks in space between our inglenook fireplace and the wall - something I couldn’t do with Fraims. The SVTs are also considerably easier to dust and I doubt if my ears would frankly detect that the Fraims are ‘just so much better’. Only way to prove that would be a blind listening test
I think someone on here has heard full-fat Fraim against SVT. It might have been The Strat (Fender). IIRC they thought each sounded slightly different but not necessarily 'better'.
That would be me.
I think the X Reference racks look pretty funky...
Not cheap, at about £4,000 for a four-tier unit, but 'andsome nonetheless.
MDS posted:Here's the two racks with the four sets of QPlus Ref in place. You can also see the bronze spikes and arrangement at the top of both stacks.
MDS.
Looks Superb.... really like the black....
I recall Alastairs demo of the Q Plus at the Bristol show...... it was very very impressive.
you have a great system....I’m particularly jealous of that newly acquired CD555
Peder posted:Kevin-W posted:
At my dealer demo today the LP12 was resting on one of these Quadraspire bamboo wall shelves (with bronze bits).
????It seems a very elegant piece of furniture ◾and sounded good.◾
???? Kevin-W,.....You said.."very elegant piece of furniture"..Yes,I agree with you.
◾and sounded good◾,...How do you know it.?Which wall-shelves did you compare against.?
/Peder????
Agree with Peder. I tried Quadraspire's bamboo wall shelf when it first came out years ago - and compared it to my previous Quadraspire acrylic version. Not impressed at all. Others I know agreed as well.
The LP12 went back on top of Fraim until Roger from Tiger Paw came out with the Vulkan wall shelf. Now we are talking - many others I know feel the same. Spectacular results - the LP12 no longer sits on the Fraim and I can return to dancing in my room without any problems.
glevethan posted:Peder posted:Kevin-W posted:
At my dealer demo today the LP12 was resting on one of these Quadraspire bamboo wall shelves (with bronze bits).
????It seems a very elegant piece of furniture ◾and sounded good.◾
???? Kevin-W,.....You said.."very elegant piece of furniture"..Yes,I agree with you.
◾and sounded good◾,...How do you know it.?Which wall-shelves did you compare against.?
/Peder????
Agree with Peder. I tried Quadraspire's bamboo wall shelf when it first came out years ago - and compared it to my previous Quadraspire acrylic version. Not impressed at all. Others I know agreed as well.
The LP12 went back on top of Fraim until Roger from Tiger Paw came out with the Vulkan wall shelf. Now we are talking - many others I know feel the same. Spectacular results - the LP12 no longer sits on the Fraim and I can return to dancing in my room without any problems.
Mr Swain seemed concerned when I told him (many years ago) that my LP12 was resting on a sagging Quadraspire acrylic shelf. I moved back Evo and then to SVT bamboo shelves with bronze bits. A massive improvement.
I think a blind test of Bamboo/bronze Quadraspire SVT verses the Fraim would favour the Fraim because it’s at its best when you can’t see it.
The test we did showed Fraim to be more punchy and detailed and Quadraspire flowed better and sounded sweeter. Both are very good but the Quadraspire edges it when cost, appearance and practically (dusty and far too wide) are taken into account.
Keith
KRM wrote:
“I think a blind test of Bamboo/bronze Quadraspire SVT verses the Fraim would favour the Fraim because it’s at its best when you can’t see it.”
. Amused me!
KRM posted:MDS posted:Ravenswood10 posted:I have the SVT bamboo wall shelf under my LP12 and very good it is too. It also goes very well with my SVT racks of which I have three so no way am I going for Fraims anytime soon. The SVTs also allowed me to fit 3 racks in space between our inglenook fireplace and the wall - something I couldn’t do with Fraims. The SVTs are also considerably easier to dust and I doubt if my ears would frankly detect that the Fraims are ‘just so much better’. Only way to prove that would be a blind listening test
I think someone on here has heard full-fat Fraim against SVT. It might have been The Strat (Fender). IIRC they thought each sounded slightly different but not necessarily 'better'.
That would be me.
Sorry, Keith. My memory failed me.
M
Kevin-W posted:I think the X Reference racks look pretty funky...
Not cheap, at about £4,000 for a four-tier unit, but 'andsome nonetheless.
‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ springs to mind! As I find both these and Fraim singularly unattractive, I’m thankful my system sounds absolutely fine on its unobtrusive shelving. I appreciate I’m in the minority on this forum, but I truly have never seen any hi-fi rack I’d feel happy about having in my lounge.
Timmo1341 posted:Kevin-W posted:I think the X Reference racks look pretty funky...
Not cheap, at about £4,000 for a four-tier unit, but 'andsome nonetheless.
‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ springs to mind! As I find both these and Fraim singularly unattractive, I’m thankful my system sounds absolutely fine on its unobtrusive shelving. I appreciate I’m in the minority on this forum, but I truly have never seen any hi-fi rack I’d feel happy about having in my lounge.
I’m not sure you’re in a minority at all. If you are, it’s more or less the same one I’m in. For me, Isoblue is a reasonable compromise, as it’s made entirely of wood with no weird sticky-out bits. It hides the electronics quite well, and the only thing that ever goes on the top shelf is the occasional glass of wine.
Kevin-W posted:
At my dealer demo today the LP12 was resting on one of these Quadraspire bamboo wall shelves (with bronze bits). It seems a very elegant piece of furniture and sounded good. As someone who has a suspended wooden floor, I'd definitely be interested in one...
I’ve had one under my LP12 Klimax for 2 years or so and have been delighted with it. It also looks less agricultural than some wall shelves.