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
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.


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.
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.
 I've run ESL57's both single, stacked and with sequerra ribbons
 

Dover, what are the Sequerra ribbons? Did you get these tweeters from here? http://www.sequerra.com/common/data/ribbon.html

http://www.sequerra.com/  Are they still available?

How did you integrate them with your Quad 57s? Did you disconnect the Quads’ own tweeters?

Is entire system still passively crossed-or are stock Quad 57s actually crossoverless? Or did you now have to bi or tri-amp it all?

Sequerra ribbons $$$? If beyond my budget, are there one or more tweeters that you might recommend?

 


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.