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Solid State Amps for Quad ESL 57?

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.
dhcod
kalali's avatar
kalali
1,645 posts
 

"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. 

bdp24's avatar
bdp24
4,908 posts
 

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.

ct0517's avatar
ct0517
1,798 posts
 
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.


nyame
198 posts
 
Kalali         1/8/2017

+1

Nice thread !

 The loudspeaker/Amplifier partnership should be viewed as a matched pair.

When building a system one should first choose a loudspeaker, then find an amplifier (within budget) that is up the task. 

I made the mistake of purchasing a Quad 57, and was unable to find an amplifier that could do justice to it. I had to build a suitable amplifier. At that time ( A very long time ago ) the only serious amplifiers I was aware of were the Mark Levinson ML_2 and the Bedini. The ML_2 was the inspiration for my amp.

ML_2            Mono - Pair            25, 50,100 watts into 8, 4, and 2 ohms
My Amp        Mono - Pair           50,100, 200 watts in 8, 4, and 2 ohms
We never tested the amp at one ohm, but it was designed to be stable into one ohm. Eight 150 Watt Motorola bipolar output transistors per channel.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
4,908 posts
 
I bought a Bedini 25/25 in the 90’s, specifically for my Quads. Pretty good for ss, the poor mans ML 2! I still want to get a little Music Reference RM-10 for them, which is THE amp for the speaker. But I’m presently focused on my Tympani T-IV’s, which require very different amplification. I’ll be bi-amping them, with the wonderful RM-200 Mk.2 on the midrange/tweeter panels.
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