Best Tube Amp/Preamp combination with Quad 2805s

Philipwu, now you see why the conflicts of these two paradigms has spawned the tube/transistors debate; yes, nearly all transistors are on the Voltage Paradigm, but not all- the Pass First Watt amps would be an example.

The Quad has a pretty variable impedance curve- which causes a lot of transistor amps to be bright in the highs and not play a lot of bass. If you investigate, you will find that most people that get bass out of Quads and transistors usually have the speakers only a couple of feet from the wall. This gets them some bass reinforcement, but only at one frequency.

I would like to reinforce what Joe_appierto wrote. Legends can sometimes be a big pain. People who are not familiar with the newer models keep repeating the wrong mantra. The newer Quads (2805 & 2905) can handle more power than their ancestors. In fact, they prefer more power.

Cosider amplifiers capable of 150W or more.

hi Ralph,
may i refer you to an Amp called AMPZILLA 2000 ver.2 Its spec mentioned :100% stable into any load angle 0 to 90 degrees, capacitive or inductive, regardless of waveshape.
is this Power or voltage paradigms? Thanks again.
I've noticed electrical phase & impedence varies greatly especially in electrostatics, will this amp serve better if it is Power paradigm?
Regards.

Hi Phillip, If the amp can double power as the load is cut in half, then it is Voltage Paradigm. That is because the voltage stays constant regardless of the load.

The Ampzilla is an example of that.

The big variation of impedance in ESLs means that for most transistors, they can't make the same power into the bass regions that they can into the high frequency regions. Add to that that the speaker is really expecting the power of the amp to be the same at all frequencies. This causes transistor amps to not make enough bass and to make too much treble as I mentioned earlier.

That is why you generally want tube amps with Quads!

Ralph, this comment is obviously coming over a year since the last post. Nevertheless, if you catch my comment, perhaps you could respond to my question.

You mentioned that the Quad ESLs have impedance curves that vary a lot as a function of frequency. So, rhetorically speaking, why is that diffrent than most speakers?

My question goes to a point that you and Al (Almarg) have made on numerous occassions. Specifically, in order to know what type of amp matches best with a speaker, be it conventional, electrostat, etc., one should try to determine what the designer had in mind when he/she voiced the speaker in question.

So ... in the case of Quad ESLs ... do we know whether the designer intended that the model in question be driven by a Power Paradigm amp or a Voltage Power amp? My sense is that your posts above permit the inference the answer is Power Paradign amps -- not Voltage Paradigm amps. Is that correct??

Perhaps a match involving an ARC type tube amp, which as you observed uses negative feedback to lower output impedance, might be a better match if the Quad ESL is hooked up to the 16 ohm tap (higher output impedance and higher gain too). However, you might point out in response that using the 16 ohm tap might achieve a smoother sonic presentation, but using the 16 ohm tap might be a non-optimal impedance match. That is the back impedance presented to the output tubes off the primary windings of output transformer might be outside the optimal range of the output stage, possibly causing increased distortion?

Your thoughts??

Thanks

Bruce