Quad - The closest approach...

It was around this time, that a series of concerts were given at both the Royal Festival Hall in London and ‘Carnegie Hall’ in New York. Gilbert Briggs, founder of Wharfedale was trying to prove that recorded music could compete with live music. A capacity audience of 3000, filling the Royal Festival Hall, listened to Peter and Gilbert demonstrate the undeniable clarity and quality of well designed, and well-built hi-fi.

In the period from 1957 to 1966, innovation was fast. Improved broadcasting meant a high demand for quality reproduction equipment. During this time, Quad developed the world’s first ever full range electrostatic loudspeaker, nicknamed ‘Walkers little wonder’ and later called the ESL-57. Many have tried to emulate the Quad electrostatic principles, but none have ever managed to produce a speaker with quite such transparency and clarity.

After a series of articles published in 1999, spotlighting the truly important milestones in the development of audio, Hi-Fi News Magazine pronounced the ESL-57 'The greatest hi-fi product in history'.