Re Quad 989 now looking for advice on Valves

[Guest]

I now have a lovely Pair of Quad 989 in my living room,but my Bel Cantopower amp is not at all keenon them at all

I am now looking at trying A valve power amp/sI have very little experience of valve power ampsand looking for advice and guidence

budget £1500ishIdeally the amp in question would be fairly easy toosell on if the experiment fails to push the right buttons

 

[Davewhityetagain]

Teddyeddie wrote:

I now have a lovely Pair of Quad 989 in my living room,but my Bel Cantopower amp is not at all keenon them at allI am now looking at trying A valve power amp/sI have very little experience of valve power ampsand looking for advice and guidence

budget £1500ishIdeally the amp in question would be fairly easy toosell on if the experiment fails to push the right buttons

The valve amplifier Tony sells would be a good match and only just over 1k so would be second hand Quad II-forties

Solid state Quad 99 pre and a Quad 909 would be a very good match too

any valve amp 30 to 60 watts no problem solid state stick to Quad 909 match made in China these days

 

[A.N.]

i heard these driven by quads own II forty, drove them fantastically well, and sounded superb.

 

[musicbox]

Used to drive my Quad 988s with a 50W Graaf 5050 power amp and a passive preamp.... still the most gorgeous sound I've had at home. It used 6550 or KT88 valves.

 

[Gromit]

If it's any help (I speak from limitied experience of things I admit) a friend of mine has ESL63's driven by a WAD KAT6550 power amp with MF A5 pre. Sounds gorgeous, and surprisingly dynamic- in fact this lot got me onto trying valves in my system.

 

[Guest]

K

Is there a website that lists the relativemerits of the different types ofvalve

 

[Tel]

I have a pair of ESL's - Martin Logan Aerius i, bought in fact from A.N. above, I don't know if they represent a similar load to the Quads, but my Conrad Johnson Premiere 11 drives them superbly with its 70W pc Class A 6550 lovliness!

 

[Guest]

Re Conrad Johnson Premiere 11

I heard thisparticular CJpowering a pair of Triangle floorstanders last year, sounded wonderful on Jazz, Acoustic,vocal stuff but less convincingwith rock but this may well

be down to the speakers not the CJ

 

[Tel]

Teddyeddie wrote:

Re Conrad Johnson Premiere 11 I heard thisparticular CJpowering a pair of Triangle floorstanders last year, sounded wonderful on Jazz, Acoustic,vocal stuff but less convincingwith rock but this may well

be down to the speakers not the CJ

To some extent that is the nature of valve amps. You are not going toget the bass tightness and slam of a Krell for instance, but what sort of bass performance are you going to get from the Quads?

I play a limited amount of rock and about as heavy as I get is the Who, and I enjoy Wont get fooled Again, Baba O'Reilly etc. But it is with acoustic material and vocals that the combination really sings for me and with a valve pre-amp as well I am in my own particular heaven

Not saying it would be anyone else's mind, but that is the joy of building a system for yourself, there are no rules, only what sounds good to you.

I would start with the music, what floats your boat, then loook for the equipment that is going to present that in the best way for you.

Personally I wouldn't use anything else but Tube amps with ESL's, those wonderful mids and glorious highs anda soundstage to go with it!

Just be careful of the current requirement, you can pull a lot of current from the output transformersof a Tube amp, and you would need something substantially higher in Wpc from a S/S amp to control the speakers in the same way.

 

[uzzy]

EAR 509 monoblocks - stunning.

Uzzy

 

[jonjin]

Do Quads sound good with their own pre/power valves? There's one on audiocandy.

JJ

 

[musicbox]

I'd avoid the Quad preamp IMO - noisy and over soft when I tried it.

 

[mrwippy]

uzzy wrote:

EAR 509 monoblocks - stunning.Uzzy

Having used EAR 509's with Electrostatics (not Quad) for over ten years,I can confirm that they have awesome potential - however, since the re-introduction of the jubileesecondhand prices have risen. Wish I'd never sold mine

 

[Davewhityetagain]

musicbox wrote:

I'd avoid the Quad preamp IMO - noisy and over soft when I tried it.

Quad 99 or Quad QC 24 ?

 

[musicbox]

The QC 24.

 

[Davewhityetagain]

musicbox wrote:

The QC 24.

yes it can be, the only valve in it 6111 I think is not very quiet

the few people I know who use the II-forties use the 99 pre as it has both remote and phono stage too I used the QC24 but was not that happy with the results

I got best results with a Naim pre amp powered by a flatcap2

din to phono from flashback

 

[GJO]

mrwippy wrote:

uzzy wrote:

EAR 509 monoblocks - stunning.Uzzy

Having used EAR 509's with Electrostatics (not Quad) for over ten years,I can confirm that they have awesome potential - however, since the re-introduction of the jubileesecondhand prices have risen. Wish I'd never sold mine

I used 519's which were the rack type 509's for over 10 years with Impulse H2's,also wish I still had them,but not enough room,sold them at a profit too.

 

[i_should_coco]

Why don't you try and borrow a few? There's a lot of variety in valve amps...they don't all sound the same by any means. A good 30W or so amp should be plenty.

Cheers,

Pete