It's not just the treble panel you need to be concerned about but it's good you have the protection circuit. My recommendation would be to reach out to one of the Quad experts, either Kent McCollum at Electrostatic Solution or Sheldon Stokes. I know Kent sells both the clamp and EHT boards and if you are handy and can DIY, they are not difficult to replace. Personally, when I bought my first pair of 57s I sent them to Kent to have them checked out. When I knew what I had to work with I was able to understand what it would take to restore them.
Recommend an amp + pre for ESL 57s and a new turntable (way out of my league)
Hi all, longtime lurker now starting my semi-serious venture into all of this. I was recently gifted a pair of Quad ESL 57s, a Well Tempered Labs Amadeus GTA turntable, and a Miyajima Labs Shilabe cartridge. I need a preamp and amplifier for the system on a budget of ~$1000 - $1500. I currently have an old Harman Kardon Stereo Festival (TA-230) receiver, which is just a cool piece of old, barely working, shits-n-gigs gear I used to drive some junky speakers with in college. It hasn't been plugged in in two years and even if its still works, I don't think it's a great match for my system. What would you recommend? I am most interested in listening to some old mono blues, jazz, and folk LPs I have, and I imagine most of the records I collect in the future will be similar (I know I have a stereo cart, which I've always understood to be fine for this?).
Some guiding questions:
- Seems like a favorite for the ESLs are a pair of heathkit UA-1s. Another that I'm seeing well recommended is the Dyna st35. Thoughts? Does it make sense to spend ~$700 - $1000 on a nice amp and get something more basic for the pre in the $400 range? (Rega fono??)
- Should I get a nicer preamp to match my cart and go with something more basic wrt amplification? Not sure what is good in the way of cheaper(?) amps to drive these speakers.
- In the event that I stretch my budget and wait a bit between buying one and the other (to save back up lol), would I get more out of a ~$1200 amp and the cheapest preamp that will work, or a ~$1200 pre and the cheapest amp that will work? What would the cheapest preamp and amp that "will work" be in the meantime? What would be in the $1200 range for each, respectively?
Thank you if you took the time to read this! I will be cleaning the dust off the Quads in the meantime.
Showing 2 responses by clio09
I worked for Roger Modjeski for 5 years and we restored my pair of ESL 57s together. There are some things that you would need to understand before selecting the approprate amplification for the speakers. First @peter_s made a good recommendation for the Music Reference RM-10. Although the story about the amp being designed by Roger for the 57 is more myth than reality. It just so happened he owned 57s and Vandersteen 2s at the time and he originally tested the amp on the latter but then put the amp on the 57s and found it worked well with them too. Do your speakers have the "clamp" board. This is very important to know as without it your choice of amps is going to be very limited. The ESL 57s were designed to be driven by voltage, and as mentioned previously their voltage limit is about 35V. Exceeding this limit can cause the panels to arc and eventually fail. Even with the clamp board I wouldn’t go over board with amplification, or play them too loud. These speakers if operating optimally will be full of detail, even at lower listening levels. Another note as pointed out by @pindac is that the speaker presents a capacitive load to amplifiers. Very different than the resistive loads boxes and planars present to amplifiers. You have a unique pair of speakers. It is best to learn as much about them as possible before making an amplification decision. There are good resources out there to learn from. My advice would be to be learn before you buy. |