Quad Mini's

Sligolad
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Quad Mini's

Post by Sligolad »

A little background on the title above first.

I have been living very happily with my pair of Quad 63's for several years now and while I have heard speakers at various shows and at meets which I would have liked to put up against the Quads most often the price range of such speakers was out of my budget.

Recently I stumbled across a pair of Raidho C1s at a price that I could live with so I jumped, I had heard Raidho's several years back and they stuck in my head since.

2 weeks back when I got the Raidho's I played with trying to integrate them with the 63's, my Classe amp has 2 sets of outputs on each channel and I had spare speaker cables so it was an interesting experiment.
Timing was good but with my small room the positioning of both sets became unworkable (they both wanted to be in similar positions to work well) but I did like the blend of Quad lush midrange with the excellent bass and treble from the Raidho's.

Ultimately the Quads went to the shed and I have been rediscovering a lot of music through the Raidho's which can really deliver in areas the Quads never get near.
While enjoying the Raidho's for the past 2 weeks every now and then there were albums where I missed the Quad sound!!

Anyway to the Title above, I was thinking what about a slimmed down Quad speaker and there started the research.
I thought about shrinking the Quad 63s down by taking out the top and bottom bass panels or more correctly the additional panels which fire last with the outer ring of the centre panels.
I could not find anything to help me with the project online so I bit the bullet yesterday evening and spent the night on cutting down one of the Quad 63s and rebuilt it just before going to bed last night.

So this evening some final tweaking and the first Quad Mini was born.

I have it playing off the right channel at the moment with the Raidho's as a filler in the middle just to put some hours on it and it sounds great as a filler that is!!

So next step is to do the same on the second 63 over the weekend and get the 2 Mini's setup to see if I can integrate them better.
Thinking of setting them up sideways either just inside the Raidho's or outside but who knows as the experiment will continue.

All a bit mad I know but they were only going to sit in the shed and go nowhere so there may be life in the old Quads yet.
I will keep you posted on progress over the coming weeks and worst case I may have a set of Quad Mini's for sale in the future for someone who might be space limited and cannot get over the WAF challenge :-))

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nige2000
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Re: Quad Mini's

Post by nige2000 »

What!!!!!!
Holy shit
ya mad fucker

This I gotta hear......
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Ken Moreland
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Re: Quad Mini's

Post by Ken Moreland »

Pearse, no-one could accuse you of being timid! Enjoy.
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bod
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Re: Quad Mini's

Post by bod »

I think you could have just wired one (full!!!) Quad to the positive terminals on both channels to give you a pseudo centre channel. If it works ok for you your next project could be how to put the 63`back together :-).
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Diapason
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Re: Quad Mini's

Post by Diapason »

I assumed you'd be telling us in the thread that the Raidhos are like mini Quads. Haha! I agree with Nige!!
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Ivor
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Re: Quad Mini's

Post by Ivor »

Nice one Pearse! A bit of inventiveness and bravery!
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tony
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Re: Quad Mini's

Post by tony »

Wtf? I thought the same as Simon. Eh.i don't know what to say. Have to go and have a lie down feeling a bit queasy
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Derek
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Re: Quad Mini's

Post by Derek »

I'm applauding as I write brilliant, fair play Pearse, hell of a bullet to bite, now when can I get a listen?
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Fran
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Re: Quad Mini's

Post by Fran »

I have to say my first reaction was noooooo, don't do that to the quads!



Yep, it'd be interesting to hear how it worked out. I would have thought the Raidhos would have surpassed the quads mind you.
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Sligolad
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Re: Quad Mini's

Post by Sligolad »

The single Mini works way better than it should stuck in the middle and I am scratching my head a bit on that one as the plan was always to convert the 2 and integrate the set.
Hopefully I will get the second one done by the weekend and for anyone who feels like dropping by then this weekend should work as I will still be playing around with them for the weekend with all else on hold at the moment.

Need some more time listening to various music for a definite conclusion but the drop in size just keeping the center panels with all the directional delay rings has a lot of benefits.
I agree Fran that the Raidho's have a lot going for them and do present a lot that the Quads will never reach but that sense of additional body to the sound-stage that the Quads do well is what I was trying to add to the Raidho's.

Its all a bit of fun at the end of the day as the Quads owed me nothing and would have just lost whatever little remaining value they have sitting in a shed collecting spiders, dampness and the temperature changes would have killed off the glue requiring a complete rebuild anyway.

They do look cute though after being stuck in front of the full panels for several years now!!
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