PMC gone to eBay - please delete

[Ben M]

humana humana humana!
Nice work Alastair.

[Manning]

Bob is selling monitors. Please see page 1 for pics.

Please don't buy them before I have the necessary cash (end of January). If you do, I will sulk publicly.

[Alastair Reynolds]

Just off the subject of Monitors again, this is my favorite Amp.
a 1958 Quad II with all original valves and parts, untouched (meaning no parts changed from the factory build)

It Came from a deceased estate in the UK and had been Boxed -unused for most of it's life.
I read that Abbey Road used a few of these in the 60s along with Leak 25 Amps.
I sometimes play mono vinyl recordings (E.G. Beatles Mono Sgt Pepper and Cream etc) through this, a QC-2 valve preamp and an Altec 601-D (12 " Smaller brother of the 604 like Otto's and as used in Abbey Rd Control Rooms prior to the Lockwood / Tannoy combo coming in the late 60s) to get an idea of how it would have sounded back then.

[Hookemeister]

Hey Alastair... that's a pretty picture... brings back memories... those Quads were a work of art... a true classic.

I had a pair of those back in 70's running Tannoy HPD's in Arden cabinets... a truly sweet sound.
Brian Murphy, with good intention, talked me into updating to the 303's... that was big mistake. The 303's are a good amp but just didn't sound as sweet as the Quad II's, think it might have something to do with the damping factor.

My first experience with Quad was in the 60's when my Dad made the transition from mono to stereo and I inherited his old Quad II and QC-2 control unit. I put the mono block and the pre into a box then built a speaker cab with a couple of 12'' Rola's and that became my first guitar amp. After a year or so one of the transformers in the power amp melted down, probably due to not enough ventilation, and that was the end of that. I've still got the block and pre in storage somewhere... if you've got the specs for the xfrms I might see if I can dig it out and get it going again and give it to my son... keep the legacy going.

So when were you working at Syntec?

I bought my first mixer, a Ta@#$% Model 10, from Bob Sloss when he started Syntec out of his home.

Is Brian Murphy still with us?

Greg

[Alastair Reynolds]

Hi Greg are you talking power transformer or Output on the quad II. Power wise is relatively eay as it's HT about 620V Centre tapped (310-0-310), then 5V for the GZ32 and 6.3V for heaters.
OT is a little more tricky as it has a centre tapped winding for the O/P Bottles cathodes. Very unusual design and part of what makes a quad sound like a quad.
I was at Syntec from early 91 until end of 95 with Murph in the heydey of A820s, SSL 4000 G series and Dolby SR.
Sadly Murph "moved on" in July 2008. I have a lot of his old Manuals and components collected over 60 years (Including 8 x KT66 GEC Tubes, still in original Boxes) that his family gave me after his will was sorted and no-one wanted them. I also have one of Murphs old Quad 303 Transistor amps. Murph taught me to "love the tape recorder".
A fabulous teacher , there are many who miss him.
But when the Quad goes on and a tape plays on the old Revox D36 Valve tape deck, I think of Murph with a wry smile and enjoy the sound of an all valve repro chain....very warm.

[stosostu]

Nice to hear that the QUAD II still has some street cred. I use two of them to power the monitors in my studio and they sound superb. The only non original thing about them is that they are both missing the steel covers for the power transformers, but it doesn't seem to affect the performance at all. However, if someone has two of those covers they'd like to part with I'd like to know.