Planar Speaker Asylum

RE: Quad 405/606/909 vs Arcam Alpha series vs NAD vs other for Quad ESL 57

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This Post Has Been Edited by the Author

In Reply to: RE: Quad 405/606/909 vs Arcam Alpha series vs NAD vs other for Quad ESL 57 posted by Mr Blue Sky on September 03, 2014 at 17:05:07

I had a Quad 606 before and it's a powerful amp but not warm sounding. Has a lot of gain. It's maybe a bit coarse sounding. The 909 and 405 are supposed to be similar.
You are looking at the wrong kind of power amps. The Quad amps you've listed are way, way too powerful for a 57, you will arc the panel causing damage to diaphragms.. Google it for more info it's a well known issue. The 606 was designed for the very different esl63.
You need to be looking at much less powerful amps. 25 wpc or less. Quad 303, Quad II valve mono blocks (16 watts a channel). The low powered Croft OTL valve amps are supposed to work well too as they like a high impedance speaker. Some Audio Innovations valve amps have 16 ohm taps and should also work well with the 57s.
For cheap transistor amps I suppose the low powered Arcam Alphas would be ok. Original, alpha 7 or 8, or 8p for example. In some of the Alpha integrateds you can flick am internal switch to use it as a power amp. They are 2 output a channel MOSFET amps and sound musical and warm for transistor amps. If you are looking at solid state amps go for ones that use MOSFET output transistors, not bipolar transistors. MOSFETS usually sound more refined and warmer, but are softer in the bass than bipolar. The 606 and 909 use bipolar transistors and have a colder sound. Like I say they are not suitable anyway, - far too much power.
The newer Croft amp series 7 power amp mentioned above is a hybrid design using MOSFET output transistors. Not that high powered and would probably also work well.

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