11L2- Loudspeakers

Quad's 11L2 has enjoyed wide popularity, rare with loudspeakers. Perhaps it's because Quad have a 'sound', as well as a reputation to maintain and the 11L2 is a tightly focused design that meets its goals. Quads don't have emphasised treble, easing long term listening. Their underlying technology is finely honed.  And then there's appearance. The 11L2 is beautifully finished with a deep piano gloss coating, giving it a lustrous shine. The cabinet weighs 6.3kgs, measures 310mm high, 190mm wide and 243mm deep, and feels very rigid. It houses a bass unit with a 125mm woven Kevlar cone and a rigid, reflection free chassis, plus a fixed central phase plug. The tweeter is a 25mm soft dome type (i.e. fabric, not aluminium) with aluminium voice coil. Bi-wire terminals are fitted at rear, and twin ports are sited here too. Quad use Neodymium magnets for high sensitivity and claim 86dB from a true watt; we measured a high 87dB from one nominal watt, confirming their figure.

SOUND QUALITY

In this group the Quads stood out for many reasons. Their tonal balance was everything Quad are known for: smooth, not immediately challenging but quietly impressive. Indeed, the Quads initially sounded warm in balance, likely due to a suppressed 3kHz-10kHz region, but they are very detailed all the same and were able to deliver vocals with the almost the same degree of resolution and naturalness as the Ushers, devoid of their slight dryness. Indeed, vocals from the Quads were positively lush sounding, quite unlike most current loudspeakers. They have a lovely sense of stage depth and superb inner detailing that had me hooked on listening intently to all sorts material, even the relatively poorly balanced live performance from Within Temptation's Black Symphony CDs.

Duffy's Rockferry sounded gorgeously atmospheric and she was picked out strongly, centre stage, situated within an obvious studio acoustic - superb. Just as measurement suggested, there was deep bass of the subsonic variety to be heard, making bass sound weighty and large, yet it was tuneful too. Only the 11L2s managed deep bass in this group. At last the Class A Sugden could display its strengths, as it didn't have a forward sounding tweeter to provoke.  The stereo stage was both wide and high, with well established images. Strings sounded smooth and even, if not lustrous as with the Mezzo 1s.  The Quads were a class act; they are smooth, sophisticated and, in every area, very effective, if obviously 'warm'.

• 11L2- Bookshelf Loudspeaker

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