As I posted a few days ago, I have been on a restoration trip along memory lane.
My Quad 22 preamp, has shown its age of late, and I have not really used it in a while. So I purchased another a few months ago in the UK. I had it sent to an antique restorer friend of mine, Geoff Kremer, of Bexley on Sea Sussex. This is a seaside town on the English Channel. I have known him for a long time. He owns, and runs,
Servicesound. He particularly specializes in reel to reel tape recorder and amplifier repairs. He also builds a sells amps of his own design.
So I had this Quad 22 preamp sent to him, for restoration. I asked him to design and build the highest quality power supply he could. I had been using one I designed and built, that I was not entirely happy with. A major problem was that the HT voltage was too low. This project required a custom power transformer be built to provide exactly the correct LT and HT voltages.
Yesterday, I received the restored preamp and the custom power supply.
On the left is the new power supply. In the middle is the refurbished Quad 22. On the right is the unit I bought new in 1965.
This is the rear view.
The unit on the right is my original unit. These Quad II preamps, were designed to be powered from two Quad II 15 watt power amps. With the left channel preamp powered from the left power amp and the right the right power amp. I originally powered mine from a Mullard 10/10 power amp, that I built, which gave very satisfactory results for years.
You will note a couple of cans on the back. The one on the left provides Eq for a variety of cartridges. The one of the right is for tape deck. There were I think 50 different cans available. In those days cartridges were either MM, Moving iron, MC crystal or ceramic types. Basically the crystal cartridges were poor, but the Decca Deram and the Sugden ceramic cartridges gave a good account of themselves, especially the Decca Deram. I used the later until I bought my Decca ffss Mk II. On the higher end in the UK in those days the Decca ffss was totally dominant, second would be the Ortofon MCs which required transformers. Goldring and Tannoy and a few EMGs were also rans. The spread of output voltages was much greater. Different LP cans optimized various cartridges. The tape can most commonly was a line input. There were cans that could play back from a variety of tape heads directly without a preamp. However this these later were not popular. Most people bought reel to reel recorders to record radio broadcasts, and that required record and playback amps. a record out and line input. Peripherals like radio tuners were powered from sockets to the left of those black power cords.
One of the unique things about the Quad 22, was the disc equalization guide.
In 1948 at the advent of the LP era, the playback equalization for LPs was standardized to the RIAA equalization curve. The old shellac 78 RPM discs were not standardized until 1954, right when the 78 RPM era was fast closing! Before that time the record companies had different equalization curve, and they could not agree.
The Quad 22 allows for all of the common Eq curves in existence by the combination of the three right hand buttons on the preamp. On the card above, black are buttons depressed, clear are the buttons out.
I installed the unit today, and its power supply.
This is the unit installed. It is connected to a Garrard 301 which is about 62 to 63 years old, with a Decca professional pickup arms and a Decca H4E head that I purchased in 1971.
You can see that the disc button is pressed on the Quad 22 and the center of the right three buttons. So that is the RIAA setting for LPs. Now interestingly Peter Walker very slightly tweaked the RIAA Eq, giving it a 68 K Ohm loading rather than 48K Ohm. In the restored unit, I had Geoff put in fixed resistors. We had a discussion about whether to go standard, or leave it original. I opted for the original 68K. In those days in the UK the Decca ffss and arm were by far dominant in the higher end LP rigs. I have a feeling that Peter had done this to tweak the response of the ffss cartridges. I always found the sound quality of a Decca ffss connected to a Quad 22 to be absolutely superb. This was confirmed today. I played an LP of Telemann trumpet concertos. The sound was absolutely vivid. Quite honestly I could have been listening to the finest recoding at the highest digital bit rate imaginable. So none of this playback rig, from pick up to amps is not any newer than 50 years old. It takes that to realize with a shock, how little progress in SQ we have actually made in half a century.
After that I changed heads to the Decca ffss MK II, that I bought in 1965. When I bought the Decca H4E, I sent my Decca MK II back to the UK, and no lesser person the Stan Kelly of the Decca Kelly ribbon fame supervised the installation of a 78 RPM stylus into the MK II. I did not own any 78 RPM recordings at that time. However there was an elderly widow, a Phyllis Field-Cooper whose husband has been a pre WW II audio enthusiast. He had owned good equipment and his records were in excellent condition. They weigh a ton, and you have to change sides about every five minutes or so. He had a large number of society recordings, particularly HMV Beethoven society recordings. So for history's sake I bought the vast collection for $90.00 CDN. The Canadian dollar was higher than the US dollar back then.
So after the LP experience I took out a 78 RPM recoding of Lilly Kraus at the piano on the Parlophone label.
This was the button setting for Parlophone recordings.
One of the reasons that this Decca Quad 22 set up was so popular back then, other than the fact that they were superb, was the ease of switching between 78 and LP heads. Back then many people still had large 78 RPM collections as they continued to increase their LP collections. The two far left buttons a depressed for mono recordings. I played this back via the center speaker. This made it sound much more like it would have all those years ago. Although hopefully my center speaker is far better then any speaker available back then.
Here are some pictures of how people handled and stored 78 collections.
With the correct Eq on the Quad 22, these old recordings, sound better than you might imagine. There is some background noise for sure, but the correct EQ minimizes it and it can be further tamed by Peter Walker's 10, 7 and 5K turnover controls with an optimal slope setting. Peter Walker just had a knack of designing really sensible, practical, versatile and practical units. Prices for his amps, and just rising to stratospheric levels on eBay, and relentlessly continuing their climb. I had a good deal on this Quad 22 as it was not working, due to some open circuit resistors Geoff found.
Finally the presentation of these turntables is actually very much of the period. None of those three turntables were ever sold with a plinth, arm or cartridge. The owner was expected to install the turntables, arms and cartridges themselves. A level of expertise and DIY skills was assumed back then. There were big London dealers who would install all your gear in fine cabinets of very high quality. Most people did their installations themselves. At that time in the UK, I would say probably around half of the enthusiasts built their own speakers. DIY speakers were common from designs in Gilbert Briggs books, the KEF constructor series, or plans from Lowther. Many built their own designs. At that time you could buy detailed plans of all Lowther speakers and I think some others as well.
Actually I'm surprised that there is not far more DIY speaker building than there is. Many also built amps and you cold buy reel to reel recorders in kit form, Brenell kits bein very popular.
Those were very different times indeed. I think enthusiasm ran much higher than now. It is a great paradox, that with so many great advances that have been made, we are now in danger of loosing the ability to provide high quality audio in the home. I Personally think aesthetics, and lack of attention to it all round is a big factor. And I suppose people are less skillful when it comes to construction tasks of all types than they used to be. That is a huge regression. Sweat equity is the best driver of enthusiasm.
I hope this will be of interest to members. For the old and senile like myself, it is a trip down memory lane. For younger members, this may be all new to them.
