advertisement


Quad II power amps

F

Fitnessed

pfm Member
Where quad 11 power amps sold in matched pairs like speakers etc?
Have purchased a set and decoding the serial numbers reveals one is 1962 and other is 1957
Is this an issue?
Have had a look on eBay on most are non matching also.
Any advice would be appreciated.
 
Stereo was a new thing then. So many people would already have a single amp and buy another later when they decided to embrace the the new world. So pairs of different date would be common. You also had holdouts, known at the time as ‘mono diehards’. Parallels with vinyl/CD?
 
My thoughts are that back in those days, the warehouse man that picked up the boxes for a purchase, just grabbed the nearest 2.
He probably wasn't interested in matching consecutive ser. nos.
They are so close, there is nothing to worry about.
Someone else probably has 1958 and 1961 etc.
 
Many Quad II amplifiers were bought before stereo was common, then later some people would have bought a stereo control unit and one extra power amplifier. This is possibly what has happened in your case, in 1957 few people had stereo, by 1962 it was quite common.

There was no matching required, if both amplifiers are working to specification all is fine. Obviously if a new amplifier and a heavily used 5 year old amplifier are used as a pair it`s possible there may be a slight difference but this should have been sorted out by now since very few units of this age would not have been serviced at some point.

The same points apply to ESL 57 speakers, very early ones would have been purchased singly for a mono system, but again they would have been serviced in the intervening years.
 
Thank you all for all of your responses.
None of the eBay ones match also.
Have also read that stereo micro groove records didn’t come out until 1959.Hence mono prior, really love the history and heritage with vintage stuff.
Chap has owned these since 1962 and recently serviced and comes with a radford sc22p.
Collecting in. Couple of days.
So probably more probing posts;)
 
Stereo recordings came out about 1957 but very few and almost no one had the equipment to play them. The only other stereo source about that time were pre-recorded reel to reel tapes but very few of those either. Stereo FM broadcasts didn`t happen until well into the sixties.
 
I read from an employee that Quad never tried to match serial numbers, the workers just grabbed a couple of badges from the bin for a stereo pair and they could easily be hundreds of numbers apart. So I’m not sure how you went about ‘decoding’ the serial numbers @Quad74 ? I had a pair bought together in 1963 which were a few hundred apart IIRC.
 
Hi,
Sorry for the late reply,have been serviced by quad in 2022 and previous years and also classic sounds in Leicester.Tons of paperwork and owned since 1972 so not dragged from a loft or damp shed like a lot of the eBay ones.
 
They should be Ok then.
Other issue is they are normally factory set for 15 Ohms, so most likely need to be adjusted for 8 or even 4 Ohms if using modernish speakers.
 
I have a pair which were clearly originally bought some years apart, and when the second was added the valves in the first were all replaced. I have the originals, the KT66s have date codes QB, so 1959. This fits with Dada on the earlier serial number. The replacements are all over the place though, each has mismatched pairs, TG and 7307 and UC and 6927. T and U fit with the later amps serial in 62-63, and the U is in the earlier amp so that also fits. Odd though that single replacements were later fitted to both amps.

I ought to do something with these but they're not really good for anything.
 
They were designed for mono, stereo came later. Bear in mind that they will inevitably have had replacement valves along the years so they are no longer exactly what was manufactured. Yet they still work as a stereo pair. The same goes for ESL 57s, there are countless pairs with different serial numbers. They are manufactured items, matching serial numbers don't actually mean very much for something that is made to a specification.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top