How did an almost all-Quad system, featuring the brand’s 33 preamplifier with phono stage ($2299) and a pair of 303 power amps ($2299/each) in monoblock configuration driving flagship ESL 2912X speakers ($26,495/pair), sound at Montreal Audiofest 2026? Set up in retailer Codell Audio’s room and fed by a Brinkmann Bardo direct drive turntable ($18,000) equipped with a Supatrak Blackbird 9" unipivot tonearm ($6790) and an Audio Technica AT-ART20 cartridge ($3799), supplemented by two REL S/550 subs ($4550/each), a Saturn Audio 103E MkII power conditioner ($3800), and cabling by Audience—the answer is, pretty phenomenal. (Prices are given in Canadian dollars.)
The Quad speakers delivered a level of transparency that felt like seeing deeper than usual into the musical fabric, as if peering into a well of life-giving information. The entire system sounded just so well balanced from top to bottom, cohesively fused into a synergistic whole.
An LP of the “Girl from Ipanema,” a warhorse known for being well recorded, sounded rejuvenated and refreshed, with greater transient tactility, material-defining texture, vivid imaging, than I remembered it having. The soundstage, too, sounded part of the natural world—oxygenated, sunlit but not bright, and organically unfolding, like a day in the park—or a live venue.
Other gear on display but not in use during my visit included a Zesto Audio Andros II phono stage ($8495), a Quad Platina class-A/B, dual mono integrated amplifier/DAC ($7995), a Quad Platina Stream streamer ($6495), and a Quad 3 integrated amplifier/DAC ($2695).
