The first time I heard a pair of Quad electrostatics, everything I thought I knew about loudspeakers went out the window. They didn’t sound like speakers at all. No boxiness, no cabinet coloration, no crossover smear. Just an open window into the recording.
That’s what electrostats do best. Their diaphragms are nearly weightless—a thin membrane suspended between two charged panels, moving with electric fields instead of magnetic motors. No voice coils, no heavy cones to push around. That lack of mass gives them a speed and transparency that’s unlike anything else. You hear into the recording. Vocals have this uncanny realism, like someone just walked into the room and started singing. It’s addictive.
But like anything in audio, it comes at a cost.
What you gain in transparency, you give up in dynamics. Electrostatic speakers have limited excursion (and even more limited bass). They simply can’t move enough air to produce deep bass or high output without distortion. They compress under pressure. Big swings in volume, the kind that make music leap out of silence—those get flattened.
The sweet spot is also narrow. Move your head a little, and the image collapses. And because they’re dipoles, they need a lot of room to breathe. Too close to the wall, and they lose their magic. Too far, and the bass thins out even more.
They’re fussy, fragile, and impractical for most rooms.
But still—there’s really nothing else quite like them. They showed me what was possible when the transducer doesn’t get in the way. When sound flows with no mechanical imprint, no inertia dragging it down.
That experience rewired something in me. It’s what led us at PS Audio to design a hybrid approach: planar-magnetic drivers for the mids and highs, paired with dynamic woofers for scale and punch. It’s not just about solving problems—it’s about honoring that window, while adding the weight and physicality that music needs.
The Quads didn’t just change my system. They changed my ears. And once you’ve heard that level of transparency, you never stop listening for it. Thankfully, with the Aspens loudspeakers, I now have the best of both worlds.
