Original retail price: £1900.00
Advert reference: 22141
Listed in: Floor-standing speakers
X DEMO - “In Very Good Condition. Just one small nick at the top of one of the speakers. No other marks or scratches. NO BOXES. Collection from Stoke on Trent.”
Noel Keywood - Hi Fi World Says;
We were very impressed by the Style 8s. Reviewer Martin Pipe has now inherited our Quadral Wotan
VIIIs and he is very impressed with their smooth, yet accurate presentation, graced by wonderful treble
from a ribbon tweeter – a perfect reviewers tool.
The Style 8s on review here offer a similar experience. They are supremely neutral in their sound
and Quadral have, if anything, slightly lowered output from the tweeter so it hardly makes itself known.
Yet it does. I used the Style 8s a lot over months of listening, with a wide variety of amplifiers – and
always I could detect the razor sharp delineation of highs that ribbons bring; cymbals positively shimmered in a lovely clear light, each tap of stick against brass picked out with military precision. No matter how good domes can seem, they never quite match a good ribbon.
Now, every loudspeaker engineer is, or should be saying in his head "ah, but what about integration?", because ribbons don't go low enough to well match cone drive units, a reason for their avoidance (as well as cost!). For this Quadral use a titanium coated midrange unit that reaches up smoothly
to meet the tweeter, and our impedance curve shows they crossover quite low down, at around 3kHz,
where wavelengths are long, so easing potential problems. As a result the Style 8 is consistent in its
forward sound over a good range of ear height. It is well integrated.
By engineering in good integration with no midrange crossover dip Quadral have ensured the
Style 8 is insightful and delivers strong detail, yet by keeping tweeter output in check they have also
ensured these 'speakers are smoothies over the long term. I was consistently struck by their sophistication in this respect; at no time did I feel one part of the audio spectrum was out of alignment with
another part. Nor did I hear any zing or rasp from the drivers that in themselves have well damped
cones of neutral character.
Down in the bass department, the Style 8s go low, very low, covering subsonics right down to
20Hz. And they are well damped, so play a bass tune. They don't have the slam of bigger cones; a
pair of giant Tannoy Westminster GRs reminded us, with their 15in Dual-Concentrics, but then you can
get Style 8s into your lounge!
What this loudspeaker has is conspicuous balance and sophistication, allied to superb imaging
across a wide soundstage – I loved their sound. Audition before all else, I suggest.
1 Sytchmill Way
Burslem
Stoke-on-Trent
Staffordshire
ST6 4GA
United Kingdom