My system is feeling pretty tube-y and I was looking for suggestions of a solid state amps that people are liking with their original Quad ESLs. Looking for more speed and more of the bass I know the Quads can put out if set up right.
Kalali Those of us who can’t afford the "perfect" speakers, resort to multiple room/system set ups for listening to different types of music. It might be a wash at the end cost-wise but it offers the opportunity to buy more toys to play with.
My multiple rooms are due to the audiophile disease, curiosity. and have nothing to do with finding the perfect speaker as it does not exist. If I frequent a room long enough, a system kit, ends up in there. With different technologies, just to make it more interesting. Its a virus thing.
Audiophiles seek change and are never happy with status quo....full stop.
Whether you keep making changes to just one room, or multiple rooms, is irrelevant. Some, with multiple rooms available, are just better at multi tasking than others :^)
At the height of glory, I think I had 5 rooms going. Not sure ask my wife. I am currently being contained to two adjacent rooms in the full basement of our home. Audio friends tell me I am lucky, but I feel like I can break out into a room upstairs where the Modded Acoustat Model 3’s are hiding at any time.
Chris---that's like the music genre defined frequency contours on some car sound systems! Not a bad idea at all.
kalali---Another example is separate home theater and music systems, for the obvious reason---the demands placed upon a speaker by movies is far different than is by music.
"People who say that some speakers are not better for some kinds of music than for other kinds---that a speaker good at one kind will be equally good at another---are imo mistaken."
Those of us who can't afford the "perfect" speakers, resort to multiple room/system set ups for listening to different types of music. It might be a wash at the end cost-wise but it offers the opportunity to buy more toys to play with.
In followup to your post, U know..... I keep changing music genres lately, more than usual. There really seems to be no rhyme or reason to it all. I can't explain it. I think it is due to stresses from the past holiday period.
Probably the best feature of that Sub remote I mentioned in my last post, are the buttons along the bottom - 4 of them..... presets..... which can be selected for "four" personalized customized settings; One can set them if they choose, for different musical genres like Classical, Jazz, Classic Rock, Reggae, etc.... with varying amounts of DB, even different X over point for each, depending on how badly the music is compressed.
Right now I have my four buttons set up for.
1) Classical 2) Classic Rock 3) Folk and 4) Adele
The 4th category nicknamed such due to requests from my wife and her friends over the holidays. Should probably change it back to Jazz. Last two weeks in Dec can be a very stressful music period.
The Quad 57 can’t be beat for some music---small Baroque ensembles (well-recorded harpsichords sound in-the-room), acoustic music like Bluegrass and Jazz trios and quartets. And vocals of course! People who say that some speakers are not better for some kinds of music than for other kinds---that a speaker good at one kind will be equally good at another---are imo mistaken. Different musics suffer more from certain kinds of speaker failings than does other music. Sure, a speaker should be designed to reproduce all musics equally well, but a speaker’s strengths and weaknesses will affect different musics differently, depending on the nature of the music and it’s demands on the speaker.
A speaker actually excelling in all areas of reproduction will be a very expensive one. For anyone buying on a restricted budget (who amongst us isn’t?), compromises and trade-offs must be expected and accepted, different speakers offering different strengths and weaknesses. As an extreme example, if a person listens only to solo piano, a speaker with even octave-to-octave tonal balance is a priority, other speaker abilities being less important to it’s reproduction. For a vocal music specialist, a speaker with low vowel-coloration will bring the most long-term musical satisfaction. For a Reggae music enthusiast, while those speaker abilities and attributes will benefit the music, they won’t to the same degree as will the speaker’s ability at rhythm and timing, which are absolutely essential to Reggae. If one’s speaker budget requires a choice between two speakers possessing different strengths and weaknesses, I sure would choose the speaker whose strengths are what my primary music requires and benefits most from, and whose weaknesses are what it suffers least from.
Right on Whart. Kent is a good guy over at EStat Solutions. I ordered EHT boards from him years ago. Can’t stress enough the importance of the subs here in the overall solution and fwiw, how "estatic" (sic) I am with the ones I chose. I found them in a recording studio - they were new in the box with full warranty. The Studio was using three and these were spares and for sale. Without naming brands, I will just say that when you have Phase, DB, Crossover FQ, plus more, all controlled with a small credit card sized remote control from your listening position.
Its hard to go back to a conventional sub with controls only on the box. You will never have to get up and go to your subs for adjustments. Make adjustments as you listen.
Look forward to hearing about your adventure. Cheers Chris
@ct0517 Hi, Chris- not set up yet, not even restored yet. Will be sending the speakers to Kent, in the mid-West, hopefully within a week. We are moving out of our current house in NY and I thought this would be a good time to send stuff out for restoration rather than simply put it into storage. Oh, and we haven't yet bought another place to live, so it may be a few months till I can share some pictures. The Quad Its will be getting restored in Virginia, and I'll probably drop them off there, along with my old SP-10 table, for rehab. Our plan is to visit some friends in Nashville and Memphis, perhaps in NOLA, and eventually make our way to Austin, where I split time. That's where we will eventually relocate on a more permanent basis. The Black Sabbath- it does get a little play here. It was my introduction to Vertigo Swirl and once I got bitten by that bug, I started to explore the wonders of that catalog. Horses for courses. A little Janos Starker on the Quads could be heaven. Happy to post some pics once that system is set up.
"How do you rate the merits of listening tests to instrument tests? "
Peter Walker
"We designed our valve (tube) amplifier, manufactured it, and put it on the market, and never actually listened to it. In fact, the same applies to the 303 and the 405. People say, "Well that's disgusting, you ought to have listened to it." However, we do a certain amount of listening tests, but they are for specific things. We listen to the differential distortion - does a certain thing matter? You've got to have a listening test to sort out whether it matters. You've got to do tests to sort out whether rumble is likely to overload pickup inputs, or whether very high frequency stuff coming out of the pickup due to record scratch is going to disturb the control unit. But we aren't sitting down listening to Beethoven's Fifth and saying, "That amplifier sounds better, let's change a resistor or two. Oh yes, that's now better still." We never sit down and listen to a music record through an amplifier in the design stage. We listen to funny noises, funny distortions, and see whether these things are going to matter, to get a subjective assessment. But we don't actually listen to program material at all. "
If you watch the Fremer's tour of Audio Research plant, they showed two listening rooms; one with SF Aida's - obvious choice especially since they are owned by the same company, and used mostly for tours, and another in the back with Magnepan 20.7 used by the engineers to help with component selections and optimization. FWIW, the tour video is available online. One data point.
Would be interested in seeing a pic of the room so I can understand what is happening.
I would be willing to go back into audiophile mode if I had the Quad II amps to compare with my Music Reference Rm10. :^)
My 57 room can be seen on my AudioGon virtual system - last pic bottom right.
I guess that means I'm not playing Black Sabbath at full tilt, but life is full of compromises. :)
Come on over and bring your lps. :^)
They will seduce and hook you with single instruments and female voices which sound like they are at the Microphone. They make the Acoustat sound colored. and veiled. Running them as a vintage second system with selected music is no problem and with many electronics.
The issue comes ....and this day comes for everyone that listens to full range dynamic music .....you want to hear them compete with their main rig.. And this is where everyone discovers it is not plug and play. I think how much success one will have is based solely on how stubborn a personality one is, for making something work and.....is the individual the type to keep good gear and tweak. Or are they a frequent flyer, buying , selling, trading gear like stocks. If the later - the Quad 57 is not for you. It is very difficult to buy, sell, trade your listening space.
Oregonpapa (Frank)- I ran the Quad SS preamp/amps for a time. The amp was the bigger 405 that you needed to insert limiters in so you didn't fry the speakers. They are good candidates IMO and work well for a second vintage system and on some material. The preamp very quirky.
One of the experiences that "hooked" me into high end audio was the day I walked into a stereo store in Sherman Oaks, Calif. and heard John Coltrane's tenor sax flowing out of a side room. I asked the guy at the counter who was playing the sax? He laughed and said: "Oh that's just the FM jazz station playing though a pair of Quad 57's." He took me into the room and sure enough, no live sax there. Just a pair of Quad's, and all Quad solid state electronics. It was the Quad 33 amp, the Quad 33 preamp, the Quad FM-3. All miniature in stature but glorious in sound.
If I had an extra room where I could fit a vintage system, I'd most likely go with the above.
This may not answer the OP's question, but I decided to have my long neglected Quad ESLs ('57s) restored along with my long unused Quad II amps. This is not intended to be my "main" system, but one I can enjoy in the house as a vintage set up, appreciating that the 57s do certain things extremely well within their obvious limits. Back in the day, I was never very successful at mating the '57s with subwoofers, and though I know things have improved on the subwoofer front, I'm not sure I'm going to try--at least on certain types of material, the old Quad can be spooky real. I guess that means I'm not playing Black Sabbath at full tilt, but life is full of compromises. :)
IOW, its impedance curve is not an efficiency curve like it is with many box speakers!! I can’t emphasize that enough- ESLs are fundamentally different in this regard.
The only amps I know of that can produce anything like a constant power characteristic are all tube amps. However, if you **do** use solid state, its quite evident that loop feedback should not be used in the amp’s design.
What they **do** confirm is that Quads can play bass quite nicely if you have the right amp on them!
For the bass they play its very good. If the music one listens to is satisfied by this ....great.
However most I know have left the 57’s due to the bottom octave missing and lack of HF’s.
The lack of HF’s being from what I mentioned earlier.
But this thread is 8 years old :^)
Jan 2017 - For speakers which are not full range, implying bottom octave missing or bottom couple octaves much lower in db on full range music; subs today take care of it very nicely and integrate well. But they do need to be setup well.
Kalali So by extension, this begs the question that every ESL speaker manufacturer should either develop and sell a matching amplifier or almost all ESL speaker owners out there will not be able to take full potential of their investments.
Kalali Well Quad do and Acoustat used to as well. IMO, anyone looking to buy really "any" expensive speaker should be calling the company direct and asking them what amps are in their test labs. Likewise if buying amps - find out what speakers they are using. I have been making these calls in past.
An extremely educational thread, even for non-Quad ESL owners like me. So based on the facts presented earlier, it appears that the ESL speakers do not follow the same amplifier requirements when compared to "dynamic" or cone design speakers. In other words, even though almost ALL speakers can have significant fluctuations in impedance over the frequency response curve, the demands on the partnering amplifiers are significantly different based on the speaker design. As another example, I've posted a picture of the impedance curve for my (ESL) speakers - Martin Logan Aerious i, and according to the preceeding discussion, my "voltage source" amplifier is not handling the the peaks - midbass and midrange, properly. So by extension, this begs the question that every ESL speaker manufacturer should either develop and sell a matching amplifier or almost all ESL speaker owners out there will not be able to take full potential of their investments. The latter would be a sad compromise.
if you are still following this thread - does such a SS Amp beast exist, and or can a SS amp be built that is like the Quad II, ......I mean if someone really wanted to ?
I believe.... and its theory only, because I am not an EE, but, I think that SS amps get smoked and dizzy, start oscillating (what’s the technical word I am looking for?) by the 30+ ohms bass requirement. Many Class A seem to be designed from 8 ohms, to double down in watts and half up in watts. If designed for the Quad 57, from 8 ohms they should be doubling up to allow the amp to cruise and not be taxed.
Actually a solid state amp isn’t ’taxed’ at least not in the way that it would be working hard. The problem is that the impedance is high so the amp can’t make the required power. This is not a matter of debate, its simple physics.
Put another way- if a solid state amp makes 100 watts into 8 ohms its likely to only make about 25 watts in the bass region. Contrast that with the possibility of the same amp making over 200 watts in the upper treble and you start to see what the problem is!
The problem here is that generally speaking, most solid state amps are intended to be a ’voltage source’, which means that regardless of the speaker load they can make the same voltage. This works great on a lot of box speakers where the impedance often represents the speaker efficiency as well- for example if there is a bass resonance (which will have a higher impedance) in a box speaker the amp won’t make much power and so does not exacerbate the resonance.
But the Quad does not have a high impedance in the bass due to resonance- it is there as a function of it basically being a capacitor (that being the ’electrostatic’ part of the way the speaker works). IOW, its impedance curve is not an efficiency curve like it is with many box speakers!! I can’t emphasize that enough- ESLs are fundamentally different in this regard.
What is needed is an amp that can make about the same power regardless of impedance, rather than the same voltage. This is so simply because the efficiency of the speaker is fairly constant over its range. Obviously this is not served by most transistor amps (although many owners that use solid state tend to back the speaker up against the rear wall in order to get it to play bass; that works in a way but you get a ’one-note’ bass because what you are really doing is reinforcing the bass at one frequency only). Quads need to be out in the room a bit in order to play properly and not be disturbed by the wall behind them- 5-6 feet is about the minimum (this is true of any panel speaker).
The only amps I know of that can produce anything like a constant power characteristic are all tube amps. However, if you **do** use solid state, its quite evident that loop feedback should not be used in the amp’s design!! The lack of feedback will steer the amplifier’s voltage response to be more like that of a ’power source’ and although it will fall short of that, it will be much better than an amp that does use feedback. Obviously this severely limits the field!
The article at the link defines the differences between what is called the "Voltage Paradigm’ (the rules required if the amp is to be a ’voltage source’) as opposed to the ’Power Paradigm’ (where the investment in the speaker is best served by an amplifier that behaves as a ’power source’).
The Quad, and any ESL for that matter, are Power Paradigm devices; its the rather simple physics of the matter which is why they don’t fit into the voltage model (which was first proposed and championed by MacIntosh and ElectroVoice back in the late 1950s).
Most of us have grown up in the age where the Voltage Paradigm is the dominant model of amplifier and speaker interface (so we may have trouble understanding how there could be any other way to drive a speaker); that is why threads like this exist where people are trying to sort out how to work with the outliers like a Quad. The fact is that if you attempt to make solid state (Voltage Paradigm) work with a Quad (Power Paradigm) you will wind up with a tonal anomaly (which is what the Voltage Paradigm was supposed to eliminate FWIW...): brightness and a lack of bass.
BTW this is easily measured as well as heard. I’ve had it suggested to me in the past that the extra bass tubes have on Quads is not correct but the measurements don’t confirm that. What they **do** confirm is that Quads can play bass quite nicely if you have the right amp on them!
had to find this on my hard drive. imo - the reason Acoustat will work with good Solid State. very different requirements from the 57 graph that Ajant posted.
The Quad 57's are an anomaly. Both physically and electronically.
Electronically and on the subject of this thread - I am not familiar with any SS amplifier design, that is able to concentrate its energies for bass, which sucks up the most power - at 30 ohms+, which the 57's need. And why should they be designed this way if the Quad 57's are an anomaly? There are no business reasons that I can see for a manufacturer to build an amp this way.
@Atmasphere, (other amp manufacturers)
if you are still following this thread - does such a SS Amp beast exist, and or can a SS amp be built that is like the Quad II, ......I mean if someone really wanted to ?
I believe.... and its theory only, because I am not an EE, but, I think that SS amps get smoked and dizzy, start oscillating (what's the technical word I am looking for?) by the 30+ ohms bass requirement. Many Class A seem to be designed from 8 ohms, to double down in watts and half up in watts. If designed for the Quad 57, from 8 ohms they should be doubling up to allow the amp to cruise and not be taxed.
ct0517 (Chris) uses a Music Reference RM10 with his Quad 57's, and he will tell you how well that particular amp works with the speaker. Roger Modjeski designed the amp with the Quad as it's load! Though a tube amp, Roger designs his amps with reliability as a high priority, and for low maintenance requirements and considerations. His amps provide very long tube life, unlike many of the more well-known and owned contemporary tube amps.
His reply seemed a bit vague, though he did say “the Quad wouldn’t hurt it” the J2.
Hi Ajant
that comment implies to me that he hasn't actually heard the J2 with the Quads?
Let me know how it goes. I stand by my thoughts that one can insert whatever amp/s you want in and try them - but this speaker is unique and therefore you should either buy the intended amp from Quad, or one that was built specifically for them, like Roger Modjeski's RM10. The only one I am familiar with. What reinforces this for me is that I have had amps that have worked well with my Acoustat and B&W Electrostatic Speakers - but did not work with the 57. If you have to add an external tweeter to the 57, the amp in my books, isn't doing the job, or there is a problem with the speaker.
The only amp I have personally owned that worked well with the 57, and also my Acoustat and B&W Electrostats, was my Music Reference RM9. And this is what put me into research mode, and on the path where I ended up with the RM10 years ago.
Also - The heat from the RM10 amp is not that bad and imo any SS Amp Class A needed will also get hot.
Sadly, not yet. We were on for a Friday early last month until Jim got pneumonia. He said he was still very sick almost two weeks later. I’ll email him this week, see how he’s feeling and maybe we can set up for something this month, I hope.
His reply seemed a bit vague, though he did say “the Quad wouldn’t hurt it” the J2. Later when I, more wisely, asked that of all his designs which First Watt or Pass Labs amp would make the Quads perform at their best in every way, he said probably the F6, F7 and J2. But he said what he really wanted to know for himself was how the SIT-1and SIT-2 would work with the Quads. Of course, that would be an intriguing session, but those two amps are somewhat more than I’d want to spend and run a lot hotter than the J2-which is hot enough for me.
bdp24 I, like Geoff, took the metal grilles off my Quads. Big improvement! I also removed the rear grilles with their attached absorptive pads, about which Quad owners have mixed opinions. If done, the speakers must be further from the wall behind them.
One fanatic Quad owner I new went so far as to removed the plastic dust covers from his 57’s! That leaves the ESL drivers free to attract dust, leading to their early demise it is said.
I also removed the plastic dust covers. Another good idea. And guess what? Never had a problem with dust and there was no early demise. Or later demise. When operating correctly sans grills and plastic dust covers the Quads can be placed so there is no toe in, which is really best, and the distance between the speakers can get determined precisely using the speaker set up track on the XLO Test CD.
I, like Geoff, took the metal grilles off my Quads. Big improvement! I also removed the rear grilles with their attached absorptive pads, about which Quad owners have mixed opinions. If done, the speakers must be further from the wall behind them.
One fanatic Quad owner I new went so far as to removed the plastic dust covers from his 57's! That leaves the ESL drivers free to attract dust, leading to their early demise it is said.
This speaker is designed for operation with a standard Quad II amplifier and it is essential for both proper performance and reliability that it be used only with this amplifier or one designed specifically for the Quad loudspeaker.
The above information has been taken from the Quad owners manual. Also it is my opinion, based on current personal experience, that anyone needing to add external tweeters to this speaker is doing so because of one or more of the following factors, which could be affecting the setup and causing problems. This assumes no hearing issues.
- Physical condition of the speakers themselves. (are they functioning at 70% )
- Room size and positioning
- Room Dampening
- Humidity levels - very dry or humid. Especially if speakers are not kept "on" plugged in.
I had Quad 57s and there was precious little bass until I put them on Arcici stands, removed the metal grills and upgraded the power cords. Then the Quads had excellent solid bass and were much more open and dynamic. I drove the Quads with modded Dynaco tube mono amps with regulated everything and aircraft grade tubes. At that point in time I had an isolated air bearing Maplenoll turntable with special 50 lb platter and 500 feet of air tubing and two air flow buffers.
with a much higher DF-that is, with a relatively high impedance, like many tube amps have.
Damping
factors of probably at least 20, which is probably 10 times higher than
the Atmasphere S30. No wonder my friend’s friend got no bass from the
S30 driving his 57s.
Damping factor has little to do with how much bass you get! - but it has a lot to do with how much distortion you get with that bass. IOW low damping factor does not translate to lack of bass! Nelson Pass has an interesting article on one of his sites regarding this fact and demonstrated it at the RMAF using a set of open baffle loudspeakers and his amps a few years ago.
In the case of a Quad 57, the S-30 has a much higher damping factor in the bass simply due to the impedance of the speaker.
Its far more likely that your friend simply hooked the S-30 up out of phase. The problem you run into with tube amps on ESLs in general is not that they don't make bass, its whether or not the amp can make highs on the speaker due to the low impedance at high frequencies.
The J2 does look like an amp that might do the job. When using a solid state amp on the Quad 57s, due to the impedance curve an amplifier that does not use loop negative feedback is likely able to do a better job than one that does use feedback.
A "properly" designed tube amp is really the way to go with the ESL 57. Roger Modjeski designed his Music Reference RM-10 amp specifically for the 57, using the speaker as the amp's load during development. If one can't use such a tube amp, perhaps another speaker would be a better choice. The speaker/amplifier symbiotic relationship is, along with the cartridge/tonearm one, the most influential in the chain.
They thing they don't tell you is what happens when driving higher impedances, like you see in the Quad ESL 57.
Thanks Dover
for pointing this out. I will have the 57s up on stands and adjusted
accordingly-and at least close to this height, if my 14 ft x 19 room is big
enough. I hope that Atmasphere and everyone will respond to my post about
amplifier choices. I've certainly nothing against using tube amps, but I am
curious about how well the J2 would work with the 57s. All the facts seem to
support good synergy between them.
Yes, the Quad 57’s impedance curve clearly plays havoc with a lot of amplifiers, but I don’t understand the reasoning behind some of explanations for this. And at least one very basic factor about the amplifier/speaker interface is missing from this discussion-and quite ironically at that, as I will later show.
First, just today, a friend of a friend-both owning 57s-bought a used Atmasphere S30, being impressed with the overall design. But he found that it was a “terrible match” and gave nonexistent bass with the 57s.
Second, Atmasphere says that Bass is hard to get with transistors and Quads because many transistor amps will double power as you cut the load impedance in half. That’s quite true with amps like the Pass Labs XA series. And he says that the Quad has high impedances in the bass region and low impedances in the treble/HF region. "Most transistor amps would thus likely play the Quad 57s with weak bass and too much highs." Okay, that’s certainly believable criticism.
But then he says that the 57’s impedance in the bass is “…well in excess of 45 ohms. So transistor amplifiers cannot make power in the bass, while at the same time they make too much in the highs, where the impedance of the speaker is down to 4 ohms.”
Well in excess of 45 ohms in the bass? According to this obviously credible source, the 57’s impedance doesn’t rise any higher than about 33 ohms, and that’s at about 80Hz. http://www.quadesl.com/quad_main.html
Last but not least: Damping factor and bass response. In my discussions with Ralph Karsten he imparted some very valuable info on this subject. He said that high efficiency speakers (like my 97db 7 to 8 ohm two-way Radian 745 Neo/Be horn drivers/ GPA Altec 416-8B midwoofers) want a low damping factor amp-no more than about 20-like the S30 amp, otherwise midbass and certainly low bass will sound lean.
I don’t know what the S30’s DF is but low feedback amps tend to have low DF. Exceptions are amps like the Pass Labs XA30.5 and the new XA30.8.The Audio Research VSi75 has 4db feedback and ~ 4 DF. http://www.arcdb.ws/VSI75/VSI75.html But the S30 has only 2db feedback, so either amp would likely be a good match for my efficiency and all but flat impedance speakers.
Conversely, ESLs in general are at least 10db less sensitive than my hybrid horns.Soundlab recommends a 100 wpc amp for their smallest full range ESL model. More powerful amps tend to have lower output impedance and thus higher damping factors, again like the Pass Labs XA series, with typical DFs of 150. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damping_factor
OTOH, the 57s, though probably even less sensitive that the Soundlabs (except perhaps for the Piquet-rebuilt 57s, says http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=96271.0 ) can’t take lots of power without risk of arcing and damage. But, like the Soundlabs, they apparently need an amp with a much higher DF-that is, with a relatively high impedance, like many tube amps have.
Damping factors of probably at least 20, which is probably 10 times higher than the Atmasphere S30. No wonder my friend’s friend got no bass from the S30 driving his 57s. But again, the amp must have BOTH ample damping factor and a high impedance output; not so easy to find in most solid-state amps.
But guess what? The First Watt J2, though a solid-state, dc coupled, all JFET, Class A amp, with relatively low feedback indeed has a damping factor of 20. http://www.firstwatt.com/pdf/prod_j2_man.pdf And John Atkinson’s measurements
Hi there I've run ESL57's both single, stacked and with sequerra ribbons with Quicksilver 8417's. I got much better bottom end when I ran them as a single pair by putting them on stands about 18-20" off the floor and tilted up so the panels were more vertical. Better bottom end and much larger soundstage. You might like to try this.
I know everything Ralph has said in this thread is dead-on accurate (as always).
It really makes me wonder how some people (some people who DEFINITELY know what music sounds like such as Chesky) power their Quad 57s with the ASR amp. The Emitter is, indeed, a class 'voltage-paradigm' solid-state amp, with power output nearly inversely linear to impedance. Based on the Quad's impedance plot, it should sound terrible, but apparently it sounds excellent and perfectly balanced.
(6Moons also attests to this in their report on Robin Wyatt's system.)
I use a rebuilt and updated 405. The only mod i did was replace the TLO71 with an opa227p (not just a drop-in replacement) and lower the sensitivity so it mated better with my Modulus 2A. Magic for about $300!
Mrtennis, the only way I've seen proper bass out of Quads with transistors was when the panel was too close to the rear wall. At the same time the highs were dreadful- harsh and lacking real speed. I have trouble believing something like that could be termed 'accurate'.
Hi Ralph, So the box resonance is what makes the voltage paradigm work. Without the box the current paradigm is the way to go. So I assume open baffle designs and horn designs would need the current paradigm also if their impedance curve is not flat. That makes sense and would explain why alot of people perfer tube amps for these type of speakers. Thanks for taking the time to explain.
Dchod,careful with Red Wine,if you're going that route you may want to consider the 70.2 mono blocks.I auditioned the 30.2 with my Innersound stats and it didn't float the boat.It was simply a clipping issue which I'm sure would not be a problem with the 70.2's.
I just noticed one that should do a good job if you want to use solid state, the Audiophile Boutique is closing out the Van den Hul Array 1 for under $1700 US, about 40% of original cost. They are very overbuilt for their output and should be able to drive Quads, I would check with them to make sure. If you are not familiar with Van den Huls work look him up, he knows what he is doing. My first post was not intended to say you could not use transistors on Quads, obviously I did. I just did not experience a greatly increased bass. I use transistors for the same reason Mr. T uses tubes, better vocals and top end. Many like the euphonic coloration tubes add, I prefer accuracy. On the power question, a transistor amp SHOULD double its power when you halve the impedance. Those that do are called voltage source amps, the ones that level off or decline are current source amps. The voltage amps require much bigger supplies and heat sinks etc. and are usually much more expensive. The output of a speaker is governed by the efficiency of the speaker as well as the output of the amp. The efficiency is given in terms of what its output in dbs are for one watt input. Doubling the amps power output will raise the output of the speaker 3db. So a speaker of 89db efficiency will require 1/8 the power of an 80db speaker if my math is on. [ 1 watt times 2 =2 watts, times 2 =4 watts, times 2=8 watts. ] You can see how very efficient speakers require little power.
i own a pair of pk quad 57. you can get bass extension with a solid state amp. wayne has used several. in my own experience, beefy power supply and more power=greater extension and fullness.
personally, i wouldn't use a ss amp on the quads. i do not like the upper mids, lower treble, where ss amps are notoriously , unbalanced, i.e., somewhat peaky.
the problem with ss amps is not bass response, it is at 1000 hz and higher. I experienced this on my magnepan as well. i got reat bass with a 350 watt class a, but female voices and violins were a big problem.
Hi Sarcher30, in the case of transistor amps, the ideal is to be able to deliver the same output voltage regardless of the load impedance. That being the case, then a 100 watt amplifier driving 8 ohms will make 200 watts into 4 ohms and 400 watts into 2 ohms until the current limits of the power supply or output section are reached.
They thing they don't tell you is what happens when driving higher impedances, like you see in the Quad ESL 57. Into 16 ohms you get 50 watts, into 32 ohms you get 25 and the ESL 57 has impedances in the bass well in excess of 45 ohms. So transistor amplifiers cannot make power in the bass, while at the same time they make too much in the highs, where the impedance of the speaker is down to 4 ohms.
This is what I was trying to explain earlier. The Quad's impedance curve has nothing to do with box resonance in fact it has nothing to do with resonance at all. So it does not use the rules where the constant voltage characteristic is useful. It expects constant power out of the amplifier, or at least the attempt at it, for best results. It is what I call a Power Paradigm device, which is why transistors for the most part are tricky at best to get even mediocre results. IOW its an equipment mismatch. see
My LP12 was outta wack. I had an overhaul and setup done and now things have gone back to the way they were. Thanks to everyone for all the info. I'm going to try out a Bedini and maybe the Red Wine Audio amps for fun!
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
