Quad Amplifiers

Should have written this yesterday but have been too “busy” listening to them to write about them.

I bought this pair in 1983 using some of my tax free earnings from my year in the deserts of Kuwait in '82; a friend had owned the previous models for over eight years and I had always liked their neutral sound.

These went very well with my Celestion Ditton 442 speakers and were a good match with my Linn turntable, the other design feature that I really approved of was their design which lends itself to very easy servicing. The input channels on the pre-amp are like PC expansion cards and the power amp was designed with maintenance in mind.

They went u/s while I was living in Scotland a couple of years ago and I had kept putting off getting them repaired but while I am on a couple of weeks leave I decided to get them fixed. Rang up the service centre in Huntingdon (where they were made) and was told that for a £20 fee on top they could do a same day service and that they opened at 07:30.

I arrived and booked them in at 08:20 and they said that they would give me a call when they were ready to collect, drove into town and mooched around finding a good looking old church (St Marys if the street name reflected the church) and a pub that served a really good pint of Youngs bitter at lunchtime.



Got a call at 13:20 that they were good to go and I was back home by 15:30 and they were powered up 10 mins later sounding really sweet.

I paid around £520 for them in '83 which is around £2,000 to £2,500 in todays terms – chicken feed compared with what the nephews have spent on amplification in the last 10 to 15 years. They have always blamed my system for “inspiring” them to go out and spend shed loads of cash to get the best sound that they could find – I have always maintained that I was not striving for perfection, just a sound quality that I liked and suited the variety of sounds that get played.