There's a Quad 405 near me - should I buy it or not please?

[beammeup]

It's quite literally half a mile from where I live in what looks like great condition for £210.

It's not a bargain price - and I don't want to spend unnecessarily - so should I put my funds towards another Quad like the 306 instead? I really don't know what vintage Quad is the best investment.

I would like to have experience of a good solid Quad current dumping design - and just because it's nearby doesn't mean I should jump the gun - but I value all your Quad experiences.

Or perhaps someone here could sell me one cheaper?

Thanks.

 

[Tony L]

If it is in great condition and ideally boxed you should be able to move it on easy enough if it wasn’t to your taste. They are always in demand and genuinely clean classic Quads are getting rarer all the time.

 

[beammeup]

If it is in great condition and ideally boxed you should be able to move it on easy enough if it wasn’t to your taste. They are always in demand and genuinely clean classic Quads are getting rarer all the time.

But do they sound good in your opinion (and not just a collectors piece)? Is the Quad 405 a prime example of the Quad range? This is the Quad version 1, which by the looks of it doesn't hold value as much as the v 2 for some reason.

 

[Tony L]

It isn’t my favourite Quad amp, I prefer both the 303 and the 306, but I don’t need its higher power. I have however heard them sounding very good with ESL63s on several occasions, so it is clearly decent enough. Fabulous looking thing from an industrial design perspective and in fairness I don’t think mine (a MkII) was ever working at its best.

 

[crimsondonkey]

Is it going to drive your speakers properly?

 

[beammeup]

Is it going to drive your speakers properly?

With a 100 watts on tap - I should hope so. Nevetheless, I tend to have a second system where I swap things in and out to experience different sounds - it's in the latter system I will try and get the best out of the Quad.

 

[beammeup]

Whilst I've been hanging around I've been doing some background research on the 405 - I am not impressed by the review on select45rpm's website - it's terrible!

http://select45rpm.com/pages/hifi/other-amps.html#90

To quote "Very bad IC designed nightmare... Hugely overrated multiple IC riddled rubbish" and "The 405 power amp remarkably has an op-amp 75p piece of lo-fi crap on all the input boards" and "Utter utter crap. How this junk is touted as Best Of British Hifi shows how awful the majority of British Transistor Hifi is"

Oh dear - that's an awful write up!!

 

[Tony L]

That is a commercial site from someone who services cheaply sourced non-collectable vintage kit and tries to sell it at a premium by slagging off the tried and tested classics. It is ‘exhibit A’ in things one should not trust on the internet IMHO.

PS By saying that the opamps in the 405 are widely regarded as its weakness and easily upgraded. See Dada Electronics for options should you wish to.

 

[beammeup]

That is a commercial site from someone who services cheaply sourced non-collectable vintage kit and tries to sell it at a premium by slagging off the tried and tested classics. It is ‘exhibit A’ in things one should not trust on the internet IMHO.

PS By saying that the opamps in the 405 are widely regarded as its weakness and easily upgraded. See Dada Electronics for options.

Maybe I should buy it out of curiosity to see (hear) for myself whether this amp is good or bad! At least as you say I could sell it on with little loss - unless others read his website to quote "To anyone considering buying any of these, are you insane? Have you no idea of anything better than this limited bass-light mediocrity? There is so much better out there".

 

[Tony L]

The thing to bear in mind when reading the words of countless Quad detractors is Quad made what are still arguably the best hi-fi speakers ever created and did so from 1957. Seriously clean, natural, open, fast and revealing loudspeakers that provide nowhere for a bad amp to hide. If the 405 really was junk do you honestly think the ESL (either 57 or 63) wouldn’t reveal that fact? They sold by the shed-load. The 405 sold hugely to recording studios too, so chances are whatever music you are playing was recorded through one if it was produced in a UK studio between the mid-70s and mid-80s. Quad amps and big Tannoys is *the* UK studio rig.

 

[mandryka]

Maybe I should buy it out of curiosity to see (hear) for myself whether this amp is good or bad! At least as you say I could sell it on with little loss - unless others read his website to quote "To anyone considering buying any of these, are you insane? Have you no idea of anything better than this limited bass-light mediocrity? There is so much better out there".

There's a 405-2 serviced 1996, 30 days refund, buyer pays return postage on ebay right now for £259 plus £13 P and P. I suggest that, unless the one close to you is serviced or in some other way distinctive, that's a better way to go.

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/710-5...0001&campid=5338728743&icep_item=192848460023

Or better, you could do a deal with ME for a Quad 303 and 34 package -- a choice of 34s -- serviced last year or Dada upgraded.

 

[beammeup]

There's a 405-2 serviced 1996, 30 days refund, buyer pays return postage on ebay right now for £259 plus £13 P and P. I suggest that, unless the one close to you is serviced or in some other way distinctive, that's a better way to go.

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/710-5...0001&campid=5338728743&icep_item=192848460023

Or better, you could do a deal with ME for a Quad 303 and 34 package -- a choice of 34s -- serviced last year or Dada upgraded.

Well the one just down the road has it's original box and manuals - but I have not idea (yet) of any service history etc.

Yes I could deal with you regarding the 34 / 303, just PM me. Meanwhile I will research the 303 in the background (finding some comparisons between the 303 and 405).

 

[JensenHealey]

Bucket loads of 405s were made and it is (in my view) an important, and classic, milestone in amplifier design. They work as they are...but apparently can still be improved. The 'current dumping' topology was controversial at the time of launch - the endless letters in the Wireless World attest to that. But you cannot argue with the sales they made.

If you do not like it - it is an easy thing to move along to someone else.

 

[Tony L]

Meanwhile I will research the 303 in the background (finding some comparisons between the 303 and 405).

Think of the 303 as behaving like a 15-20 Watt valve amp, it is absolutely hopeless at driving reactive low impedance modern loads, just crazy bad, but if you own the sort of speakers that would work fine with a Stereo 20 or whatever but don’t want the faff of a real valve amp then you may well like it as when working exactly as it should it has a lovely natural easy-going mid-band. It is an amp that gets right out of the way and doesn’t draw any attention to itself.

The best all-rounder IMO is the 306, which is a lovely little amp. Astonishingly quiet so can be partnered with high-efficiency speakers (unlike the 405, which has a fair bit of hiss, or at least mine did). The 306 doesn’t quite have the 303’s lovely mid, but it is close, and makes up for it with some surprising punch and slam. They are very much undervalued at present IMHO. I loved mine, though as I use speakers that are so perfect for the 303 I let it go to Richard (Lordsummit) who is getting very nice results with no preamp and a Chord Mojo upstream.

PS I don’t have any experience with any of them, but I get the impression that the 606, 909, QST etc are basically much more powerful 306s with the same strengths. Probably the way to go if you have awkward speakers.

 

[crimsondonkey]

With a 100 watts on tap - I should hope so. Nevetheless, I tend to have a second system where I swap things in and out to experience different sounds - it's in the latter system I will try and get the best out of the Quad.

It’s less about the absolute number and more about speakers where the impedance drops at points on the frequency spectrum. It’s my experience that there are better amps out there for coping with that.

I do like Quad though with vintage easy/ stable load speakers.

 

[beammeup]

PS I don’t have any experience with any of them, but I get the impression that the 606, 909, QST etc are basically much more powerful 306s with the same strengths. Probably the way to go if you have awkward speakers.

I wouldn't say I have awkward speakers, but I was seriously thinking about getting a pair of modern Klipsch loudspeakers to play with, which are pretty much all easy to drive. The black stand mounts with bronze coloured cones and horn tweeters were the style I was considering. They don't look vintage for sure, but they should be super easy to drive as most Klipsch speakers are - allowing me to try some old flea powered amps. That aside, as you can see from my AU-101 thread - I have a pair of vintage Mordaunt Short Pageant II's which are driven well by the a 15 Watt Sansui.

I'm going through a vintage exploration stage - and the Quad 405 down the road just had me thinking about using the proximity opportunity. I would assume the 405 would be better than the AU-101 from the same vintage (sounds like I am running on about wines here).

 

[Tony L]

Given the mention of Klipsch I’d avoid the 405, which I thought was decidedly less than great into my La Scalas and my personal taste would be for a good properly serviced but still original 303 (or a pair of Quad IIs!) if you fancy a Quad amp. The problem is finding a good one as she many these days have been botched or “improved” by internet experts and just don’t sound how they should. A good one working exactly as it should is a very nice amp and matches the Klipsch I’ve tried (Heresy and La Scala) rather well.

PS There is a very positive review of a Klipsch stand-mount in this month's Stereophile, they love it!

 

[JensenHealey]

I wouldn't say I have awkward speakers, but I was seriously thinking about getting a pair of modern Klipsch loudspeakers to play with, which are pretty much all easy to drive. The black stand mounts with bronze coloured cones and horn tweeters were the style I was considering. They don't look vintage for sure, but they should be super easy to drive as most Klipsch speakers are - allowing me to try some old flea powered amps. That aside, as you can see from my AU-101 thread - I have a pair of vintage Mordaunt Short Pageant II's which are driven well by the a 15 Watt Sansui.

I'm going through a vintage exploration stage - and the Quad 405 down the road just had me thinking about using the proximity opportunity. I would assume the 405 would be better than the AU-101 from the same vintage (sounds like I am running on about wines here).

Quad 405 and an Au101 do not even stand in the same continent.

 

[Zombie]

Get the immaculate 909 that's for sale on pinkfish

 

[mandryka]

The bottom line is that you can't decide until you hear, everyone has different tastes. Even calculations are unreliable, who'd have thought a stereo 20 would drive JR 149s? Tony says that you can shift quads but it will take time and effort.