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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
ct0517's avatar
ct0517
2,041 posts
 
Right on Whart. Kent is a good guy over at EStat Solutions. I ordered EHT boards from him years ago. Can’t stress enough the importance of the subs here in the overall solution and fwiw, how "estatic" (sic) I am with the ones I chose. I found them in a recording studio - they were new in the box with full warranty. The Studio was using three and these were spares and for sale. Without naming brands, I will just say that when you have Phase, DB, Crossover FQ, plus more, all controlled with a small credit card sized remote control from your listening position.

http://pdfasset.owneriq.net/7/59/759489fe-7a1b-4d1c-9604-af448eda70e6/759489fe-7a1b-4d1c-9604-af448e...

Its hard to go back to a conventional sub with controls only on the box. 
You will never have to get up and go to your subs for adjustments. Make adjustments as you listen.

Look forward to hearing about your adventure.
Cheers Chris

bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,874 posts
 

The Quad 57 can’t be beat for some music---small Baroque ensembles (well-recorded harpsichords sound in-the-room), acoustic music like Bluegrass and Jazz trios and quartets. And vocals of course! 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. Different musics suffer more from certain kinds of speaker failings than does other music. Sure, a speaker should be designed to reproduce all musics equally well, but a speaker’s strengths and weaknesses will affect different musics differently, depending on the nature of the music and it’s demands on the speaker.

A speaker actually excelling in all areas of reproduction will be a very expensive one. For anyone buying on a restricted budget (who amongst us isn’t?), compromises and trade-offs must be expected and accepted, different speakers offering different strengths and weaknesses. As an extreme example, if a person listens only to solo piano, a speaker with even octave-to-octave tonal balance is a priority, other speaker abilities being less important to it’s reproduction. For a vocal music specialist, a speaker with low vowel-coloration will bring the most long-term musical satisfaction. For a Reggae music enthusiast, while those speaker abilities and attributes will benefit the music, they won’t to the same degree as will the speaker’s ability at rhythm and timing, which are absolutely essential to Reggae. If one’s speaker budget requires a choice between two speakers possessing different strengths and weaknesses, I sure would choose the speaker whose strengths are what my primary music requires and benefits most from, and whose weaknesses are what it suffers least from.

ct0517's avatar
ct0517
2,041 posts
 
^^^^^^^^

Hi Eric (Bdp24)   

In followup to your post,
U know..... I keep changing music genres lately, more than usual. There really seems to be no rhyme or reason to it all. I can't explain it. I think it is due to stresses from the past holiday period.
   
Probably the best feature of that Sub remote I mentioned in my last post, are the buttons along the bottom - 4 of them..... presets..... which can be selected for "four" personalized customized settings; One can set them if they choose, for different musical genres like Classical, Jazz, Classic Rock, Reggae, etc.... with varying amounts of DB, even different X over point for each, depending on how badly the music is compressed.

Right now I have my four buttons set up for.

1) Classical 2) Classic Rock 3) Folk and 4) Adele

The 4th category nicknamed such due to requests from my wife and her friends over the holidays. Should probably change it back to Jazz. Last two weeks in Dec can be a very stressful music period. 

Cheers Chris

kalali's avatar
kalali
1,977 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
9,874 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.

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