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New QUAD 33 / 303 to be released...

stevec67 said:
I think that hifi manufacturers have been incredibly lazy over the last 50 years. Where is the innovation? 40 years ago we had the CD and finally (finally!) we have things like DSP, but the rate of prograss has been pathetically slow. Other electrical goods have advanced enormously, TVs, phones, don't even mention computers, yet hifi is still bumbling along and not much improved on the designs of the 60s and 70s. Yet there are companies that will sell you a £200 fuse.
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But don't you think its an incredibly conservative market Steve? Witness the sheer number of valve amplifiers still being made. Even within that, the highest rated valves are ancient designs ( from the 1930s etc) .
There are people on this forum so influenced by the hifi press of forty years ago, that they never got into CD, though sheer age is now encouraging them to take up streaming for its convenience.
The fifty year old Linn Sondek, the even older but revered Garards, Tannoy speakers..... etc etc.
The many people in this hobby are old and very nostalgic. Every time a modern design comes to the fore members here line up to trash it.
The Japanese attempted to innovate with hundreds of new designs in the eighties. All they got was derision in the UK. Ironically, some of those designs are being revisited now...... but only because they are old and somewhat quaint
IAG know all of this and they deserve the sales these new retro quads will bring them.
 
Fitnessed said:
blog.thedigisource.com

Through-Hole vs. Surface Mount

Modern PCBA design has two main methods for mounting components onto a PCB: Through-Hole Mounting and Surface Mounting
blog.thedigisource.com blog.thedigisource.com
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Having qualified for soldering pcbs for satellite flight hardware for the European Space Agency, my training all be it 10 years ago would disagree with a few points in that webpage.
We certainly favoured SMD over through hole for ruggedness and reliability. Even bonding radial caps with epoxy their leads will often fail under serious vibration test, and once bonded to the PCB they are very difficult to remove to repair.

Satellite stuff you don’t really care about repairability, its reliability and robustness that you strive for.
 
Interesting. The Quad looks very solidly made (read expensive!), and I suspect the 33 is a fair bit bigger than the Walker original. Mission amps are interesting too, I’ve never understood the relationship between them and Cyrus (who I don’t think are IAG). I never thought I‘d see a Wharfedale DIY speaker kit, Gilbert Briggs would approve!
 
lordmortlock said:
Agreed. A new Quad flagship pre/power perhaps?

Hard to see clearly but looks like it’s a straight up pre from the inputs to me. I can’t see any digital in.
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Yes, I couldn’t spot anything. As others have suggested maybe an FM3-type third part for digital streaming? I’m increasingly curious about the 303 design too. I’d like to see some specs. Quad already have some pretty expensive and high-power current-dumpers in the range, so very interested to see what direction they go here, i.e. do they try to capture the friendly almost valve-like character of the original in a lower power maybe class A amp?
 
Tony L said:
Yes, I couldn’t spot anything. As others have suggested maybe an FM3-type third part for digital streaming? I’m increasingly curious about the 303 design too. I’d like to see some specs. Quad already have some pretty expensive and high-power current-dumpers in the range, so very interested to see what direction they go here, i.e. do they try to capture the friendly almost valve-like character of the original in a lower power maybe class A amp?
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I’d love the 303 to be faithful to the original design and sound.

For me, it would be a missed opportunity to use the heritage and iconic design only for it be very different internally and sonically.
 
lordmortlock said:
I’d love the 303 to be faithful to the original design and sound.

For me, it would be a missed opportunity to use the heritage and iconic design only for it be very different internally and sonically.
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I highly agree.

If this new 303 ends up being something totally different. Then Quad gets my middle finger!

Time will tell.

S.
 
Tony L said:
Interesting. The Quad looks very solidly made (read expensive!), and I suspect the 33 is a fair bit bigger than the Walker original.
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I suspect these components are fairly close to the size of the originals. Taking the size of the combined IEC socket on the rear of the 303 to be 34 x 30 mm (h x w), the new 303 looks to be about 130mm wide, against 120mm for the original. The 33 does seem deeper than the original.

The casework does look solid, but would it really be much more expensive to produce than faceplates of some audiolab amps or the Artera heatsinks?

But this is all surface. What do they sound like ... there's the question.
 
And more importantly, what technology do they use? Discrete or chips?
Can anybody go to that show and weigh the 303?
 
Barkiss said:
I suspect these components are fairly close to the size of the originals
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That would be important allthough the picture looks like there's some difference.
It always help looking at the item in flesh.
Maybe somebody soon will be able to put these boxes aside and shoot a picture.

And more importantly, what technology do they use?
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As for technology and components used, I doubt there will be one single thing in common apart from the Quad brand label.

I recall my own 303 was made in the 60s, serviced in Huntingdon before Brexit - meaning they have or have had original stock parts.
 
Puggie said:
Having qualified for soldering pcbs for satellite flight hardware for the European Space Agency, my training all be it 10 years ago would disagree with a few points in that webpage.
We certainly favoured SMD over through hole for ruggedness and reliability. Even bonding radial caps with epoxy their leads will often fail under serious vibration test, and once bonded to the PCB they are very difficult to remove to repair.

Satellite stuff you don’t really care about repairability, its reliability and robustness that you strive for.
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Unfortunately, with domestic Audio, repairability is an issue.
I'd much rather repair an Amp with a through-hole PCB which has suffered a catastrophic failure than one using SMT.
If 'Power' components fail and burn the board the whole thing would need to be replaced. Whereas with a through-hole PCB, yes, the board might be damaged, but using components with 'long legs' (!) those legs can be used to reach the point in the circuit they were meant to reach.

P
 
Repair ability is defined by the manufacturers decision to make schematics and parts available, far more than the choice of component used. And if said manufacturer actually wants you to repair their equipment, or have them repair it, or buy a newer ‘better’ one from them.

Yes to can stretch long legs of TO220 transistors to an un-burned bit of PCB, it’s a bodge along with making up tracks by soldering all the component leg offcuts together! But you can also rebuild tracks with copper foil and epoxy you could run wires and superglue them to the PCB. Really if the PCB is burned and tracks lifted anything short of PCB replacement is bodging, once you have burned a PCB it can become slightly conductive. If I designed an amp with an intentionally fragile or unprotected output stage (because it sounded better) I would have the power devices on a small replaceable PCB. It’s just a case of designing something with repairability in mind.
 
Took a couple of screen grabs from the video posted earlier. Certainly looks well made, but wouldn’t expect anything less was very impressed with the Artera Pre and Power amps. Hard to say whether the 303 will just be a 303 in name only though. The recreated Quad IIs have stayed largely faithful to the original circuit, bar a couple of tweaks. Ditto the Artera power which has a tweaked version of the classic 405/606/707/909 etc. circuit. It’ll be quite a disappointment if it’s an entirely new design. Fingers crossed, they look great imho.

Seems to be fully analogue looking at the socketry, though there may be a usb port centre right on the 33. Maybe just for software updates for the control system (the Artera pre is firmware updateable too, albeit has to be returned to Quad first).


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‘Bridge mode’ button on the power amp is interesting. They want to sell you two!

The USB port on the 33 is interesting in that it is ‘the wrong one’ being a type A where one would expect a type B. If it was just for firmware update I’d expect it to be inside rather than occupying rear panel real-estate. It wouldn’t entirely surprise me if there was a FM3-shaped streamer on the way…
 
TBH I'd prefer to see a pre with the same tone control functions as the 34, rather than the 33. But I guess the new 33 won't be as easily 'modifyable' as my ancient 34's...
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
TBH I'd prefer to see a pre with the same tone control functions as the 34, rather than the 33. But I guess the new 33 won't be as easily 'modifyable' as my ancient 34's...
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The new 33 does seem to have the ‘bass’ and ‘tilt’ control of the 34 rather than the 33’s standard bass and treble. Hopefully it is continuously variable rather than the 34’s clunky big steps which I always found ‘too much’ or ‘too little’.
 
keith wrote this on another forum

From Stereophile’s Munich report,
‘Henke told me that the new Quad components will be available within six months. The 303 will offer 60Wpc, cost approximately €1500 apiece, and include balanced and single-ended inputs and outputs, a remote control, a phono stage, and the original Quad’s “tilt controls.” The 303 prototype was very heavier than it looked. The classic orange buttons had excellent touch.’
Keith
 
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