Power amp for Quad 988s


I am looking for a new power amp for my Quad 988s. My current CJ tube amp is underpowered. I have thought about a BAT tube or solid state amp or the Musical Fidelity A308. But, I would appreciate any suggestions from from those that have these speakers or have an idea of what would go well with them. I am willing to spend up to $5k. I am currently using an ARC SP-6B as my preamp, but that might/could change depending on my choice of power amp. Thanks for any suggestions.
garakawa

Showing 3 responses by jeffreybehr

Which c-j tubed poweramp is underpowered? How big is your room? Musical tastes? Desired loudness levels? Subwoofers? Running 988s full-range?

HELP US HELP YOU!
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OK...some observations for whatever they're worth.

1. If you think you love the lush, musical richness of EL34 output tubes, consider a new MV60. Not only does it have about 1-1/4 deciBels more power (60 Watts instead of 45), it uses the same larger output transformers as the 70WPC Premier Eleven. PROBABLY it will have tighter bass.

2. If you think 1-1/4dB more power isn't quite enough more, consider a Premer Eleven-A at 70WPC and 2dB. It's VERY popular, fairly common, and fairly affordable at c. $1500. If it turn out to be not better enough, you can always sell it for what you paid for it.

3. Consider refining the sound of your room, with, for instance, Tube Traps or similar products. Does your room have several triple-90-degree corners? Most have, and as many as 8! Eliminating them with corner 'plugs' will help. Where are the speakers and where are you in respect of the bass nodes? Are you sitting at a peak, ie 1/4 of the left/right or front/back dimension?

4. Consider a dipole woofer such as the Gradient SW-63 that was so popular with the Quad 63s. See http://user.tninet.se/~vhw129w/mt_audio_design/quadpage.htm . They used, IIRC, 2 10" drivers and also acted as speaker stands.

Lots to think about. Good luck.

BTW, I'm using Quad 989s driven full range by Antique Sound Lab Explorer 805 DT poweramps, 50-Watt single-ended triodes. My room is 21' wide by 19' deep by 6-1/2-to-12' high, with very little wall surface parallel. (See the pics in my System.) I listen to large-scale classical and film music, and those amps will drive the 989s JUST loudly enough to invoke the speaker-protection circuitry if I accidentally turn the volume UP instead of DOWN.
You are very welcome. One caution--I have NO idea if the 988's base size is compatible with the Gradient. Do look carefully at that.

I've done very little room treatment. Fortunately what I did to a 14x19x8' living room in 1982 turned out to be VERY listenable.

Filtering a little bass out of the Quads will increase their power-handling capacity too. A single-order filter point of 30 or 40 Hz might help a lot, and that can be done very easily with one series capacitor. In fact, years ago I had some requirement to have some bass filtered out of a poweramp sometimes but not other times. I changed the existing filter cap to a smaller value that achieved the high-pass filtering but then added a larger one in parallel but with its input switched. With the large cap switched in, I had a full-bandwidth amp; with it switched off, it was an '8-octave' amp. Worked very well.
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