The Quad thread

[lkong]

Dear Quad gurus

I'm looking to upgrade amplifiers for my Quad 63, preferably solid state.

Budget is around $1000, new, used, and DIY kits anything goes.

Suggestions?

[Craig Sawyers]

I used to drive my ESL 57's with an Audio Research D125 hybrid. Solid state front end, and a bunch of 6550 tubes. Sounded great.

But an old friend (now alas dead) used a Diavelet to drive his much more recent Quad ESL's. But that will be outside your budget.

[Dusty Chalk]

For solid state, I like Musical Fidelity.

[lkong]

1 hour ago, Craig Sawyers said:

I used to drive my ESL 57's with an Audio Research D125 hybrid. Solid state front end, and a bunch of 6550 tubes. Sounded great.

But an old friend (now alas dead) used a Diavelet to drive his much more recent Quad ESL's. But that will be outside your budget.

Diavelet as their class D amps? People seem to have polarized opinions on class D and ESL. For 1k budget, I can swing a pair of Hypex NC400. But I have no idea if that would be a good fit.

 

[Craig Sawyers]

Well the Diavelet is something more akin to the Quad current dumping technology. They have a very have quality class A amplifier that does the first Watt or so, an then a class D "dumper" that takes over duty for high current drive.

The basic company funding that generated their first product came from the French government.

I don't have one by the way.

The Hypex N-core class D amps have absolutely astonishing performance, and show what is possible nowadays with pure class D. ATI does a stereo power amp that uses N-core modules and a linear power supply (which apparently makes the amps sound better than the Hypex switched mode supply) for $1,895.00 weighing in at 39lbs. You get a whole lot of amp from ATI. http://www.ati-amp.com/AT52XNC.php 

Even Bel Canto have gone across to using N-core! For a company that has used their own class D technology for 15 years.

Or you can buy a monoblock kit directly from Hypex for 650 Euro. Times 2 for stereo, so 1300 Euro (=$1600).

None of these options fits the $1000 budget of lkong though.

[dsavitsk]

5 minutes ago, Craig Sawyers said:

They have a very have quality class A amplifier that does the first Watt or so, an then a class D "dumper" that takes over duty for high current drive.

 

5 minutes ago, Craig Sawyers said:

The Hypex N-core class D amps have absolutely astonishing performance, and show what is possible nowadays with pure class D.

 

I feel like these two statements present a bit of a contradiction. Unless Diavelet is not as good at Class D.

[Craig Sawyers]

No - that is not what I'm saying. There is simply more than one way of skinning the class D cat, and is more to do what you have patented.

And Diavelet's website is an absolute nightmare - it has more to do with production values than finding products. And they are seriously plugging their rather strange spherical speaker. They have invested 50 million somethings (US Dollars, UKP, Euro - they are all pretty similar nowadays) of investor's money in the design, so not surprising.