Over the years, Roger Quested has been a leading designer of high-quality monitoring systems that have been a popular choice with studios, broadcasters, mastering facilities and remote recording vehicles throughout the UK. Quested’s latest model is the VS3208, a three-way, active design with 440 watts of onboard tri-amplification, making it the company’s largest self-powered system. Retail is $3,700 each.

Technical Details
The VS3208s contain dual-proprietary, 8-inch woofers (each housed in its own internal driver chamber), a 3-inch, soft dome, midrange driver (also enclosed within its own chamber) and a 1 1/8-inch, soft dome tweeter. The rear-mounted amplifier unit supplies 230 watts to the woofers, 110 watts to the mid-driver and 100 watts to the tweeter (all ratings RMS continuous). The system’s rated frequency response is 40 to 18k Hz (±2 dB). An optional VS1115 subwoofer is available for use in 5.1 surround applications, large rooms or for bass-heavy musical styles.

The front-ported 19 x 24.25 x 16.5-inch (WxHxD) enclosure weighs in at a hefty 104 pounds, and its 19-inch width allows it to be mounted in a standard rack. For installations where soffit mounting is desired, an optional remote mounting kit allows the amplifier section to be located separately from the monitor to ensure adequate cooling. In free-field use, I found that cooling was never an issue. The long heat sinks that run the length of the amplifier unit are highly effective in dissipating heat. Even after long periods of use, the amps were only warm to the touch and never became hot.

Hookup is simple. In addition to an AC power switch and removable IEC power connector, the rear panel features a balanced XLR input connection (Pin #2 hot). If desired, the speakers can also be driven by an unbalanced source. Input level matching controls are also provided, and three-position switches (cut/flat/lift) allow the user to tweak the system’s response to match room requirements or a listener’s taste. The HF switches adds ±2dB boost/cut above 5 kHz, and the MF switch engages at either 500 or 3k Hz. The LF switch engages either an 80Hz boost or a 100Hz cut. The 100Hz cut position is intended as a highpass filter when the VS3208 is used with an external subwoofer.

The sensitivity control is a recessed, 10-position rotary switch calibrated in 2dB steps from +4 dBu to -14 dBu, allowing users to interface the VS3208s with any system. Lately, I’ve seen too many monitors with continuous sensitivity controls that make precise left/right matching difficult, so the VS3208s’ stepped attenuator is an appreciated touch.

An LED centered in the front logo is a multifunction device, glowing green when the system is powered up, flashing red when the input reaches -0.5 dB of clipping and turning solid red when the VS3208s’ thermal protection switches the amplifier to standby. The VS3208s are capable of maximum SPLs of 112 dB—more than adequate levels for all but the largest rooms, and it’s unlikely that users would see any red LED action under sane listening conditions.

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Reprinted with permission from Magazine, November, 2000
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