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Quad 303 red (painted?) transformer.

K

KevinHiFi

Member
I looked at a 303 yesterday,, serial 37xxx in mint condition outside and the inners appeared original and untouched with 1973-dated caps etc. I suspect that I was the first person to open it since it left the factory.

Curiously, the transormer is completely covered in wine-red paint that has been very evenly and neatly applied to all the body and the spacers/stand-offs. The hex heads of the fixing bolts are painted, also the very end of each bolt but not the thread, washer and nut.

This looks to be original and done prior to being fixed and connected. There is a sticker on top of the transformer with each terminal's number (1-11) and A12085 (Quad's part number) and YE221 (possibly YEZZI), so this, together with the neat workmanship, is why I think it is original.

Surprisingly, Google hasn't resulted in any mention or images of red-painted transformers; my 303 of a similar age has a common non-painted one. I am surprised that there seems to be no mention on this forum, at least. Has anyone seen these before? @Robert or anyone who has seen loads of 303s.

Kevin.
 
The only time I've come across this is with a sealed or 'potted' transformer that has been resin dipped or impregnated to work best in harsh/humid climates. Maybe Quad was using potted transformers for some export markets - I've no direct knowledge...DGP
 
Thanks, DGP. I've seen similar dipped transformers before but am surprised that there seems to be no mention of them in 303s, especially on the many (quite in-depth) posts on here.

I have emailed Quad IAG and will post here if they tell me anything.
 
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Unsurprisingly, the red transformer that I saw is not unique as Quad have told me they have seen a few but have no information about why they were done.

Possibly done as a trial (maybe for overseas, as suggested by DGP) we will likely never know so it will probably have to remain a curiosity.
 
Never seen one myself.

What is the serial number? That may help narrow it down. Both mine are very early with four digit numbers, so ā€˜Mk Isā€™ made somewhere before 1970.
 
@chartz I didn't take a photograph but looks just as I have described in my first post; there's nothing more to it.

@Tony L serial 37xxx as mentioned. Definitely not a mark 1 due to the serial, obviously, but it also had 'wide/fat' heatsink fins, original 1973 caps etc.
 
Sorry, missed that in the original post. That and the cap dates certainly suggests that is when they were doing it, though why, Iā€™ve no idea. I assume Quad never wound their own transformers, so may be as simple as a change of supplier over the years. It is just a component, albeit one where Quad will have tightly defined the spec.
 
Yes, I did think it could have been a new supplier who dipped their transformers as part of their normal process, even though it wasn't specced, resulting in Quad asking them not to do it on future runs or maybe Quad just changed supplier again after one batch was made.

Although it seemed surprising to me that there is no mention of these on the internet, it's quite feasible that there were a few hundred made, say 300. 20% of these could be no longer in existence (scrapped as no longer working or just thrown away by relatives 'getting rid of old stuff' from grandad's house). Of the 240 remaining, only a handful will belong to those on hifi forums and even fewer of those people will remove the casing to look inside, most not noting the red transformer. Any professional repairers probably don't have the time or enough interest to note obscurities like this, even though they may have seen quite a few.

Just a bit of musing with figures and ideas plucked out of thin-air but possibly not far off the mark. We are so conditioned to expecting everything to appear by Google that it is a surprise when something is still unrecorded.
 
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