Power handling capability of original Quad esl 57s


After many years of hearing about how wonderful the original Quad esl 57s are, I finally found a near mint late serial number pair. I'm in audio heaven! I used to own the 63s and the 989s, and these are much better ( in the sweet spot).

Now my question: what is the power handling capability of the 57s? There seems to be some confusion here. According to the original manual, it is safe to use any amplifier as long as it does not produce more than 33 volts at any impedance. This is an interesting specification because it does not differ from the 63s.

Ok, let's do some math. At 8 ohms, 33 volts into 8 ohms gives us
33^2/8 = 136 watts! At higher imoedances, power must drop, so at 30 ohms, the speaker can only take up to 30 watts.
tuttles

Showing 1 response by lacee

When I had a stacked pair of %&'s I used an old Bell 2481 tube integrated,circa 1961 and stock 18 watts.

I also used the AtmaSphere S 30 OTL amp.

In my experience, a tube amp around 30 watts is fine.

Solid state amps around the same wattage have also been reccommended(Bedini 25/25 etc) but I've always found out that tube amps sound louder than their similar wattage solid state contemporaries.

Trying to push a 30 watt solid state amp to the same volume as a 30 watt tube amp may make for a nasty surprise.