All that glitters

[bobvfr]

As some of you may have read in the past I wanted to use my Quad 33/405 amp with my Tannoy Cheviots and my Xbox One X.

I bought a Dac from another member and hooked it up. I have to say it sounded impressive, but I couldn't help but notice my use of the system to play music actually went down.

So in the end I pulled out the Dac, re-plugged in the Pioneer amp with digital input and configured it to work with the Xbox.

And the result is I am enjoying my music again.

The Quad is impressive, plenty of power, wonderful sound, but something wasn't right, I don't know what it was, but the current set up just sounds better...….




PS have given the Quad to my son in law (Loves electronics and 50's/60's designs).

[Jazid]

Well there's a couple of possible reasons: the 33s around these days aren't that good, maybe never were, and Tannoys are cranky as hell with power amps. All that matters is you're listening again, the rest is a distraction [emoji16]

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

[Barry]

Did you use your Quad 33 with a CD player ? I assume the Xbox has a similar output, so will overload the Quad 33 unless modified.

[walpurgis]

That thought crossed my mind too.

[mikmas]

Did you use your Quad 33 with a CD player ? I assume the Xbox has a similar output, so will overload the Quad 33 unless modified.

Agreed ... sounds to me like the Xbox was connected via a DAC plugged into the 33 - which would indeed have the same deleterious outcome.

The 33 is a very capable little pre, once fettled to cope with modern output levels (the DADA mods work wonders ... and for very little outlay)

[bobvfr]

Yes the Quad had it's input board modified by Quad many years ago for CD input.

I had been using it with various CD's over the years and it always sounded good (With the Tannoy's as well), even with the CD player I purchased a few months ago.

But having lived with it in the real world compared to the Pioneer, the sound was just better with the later, this really surprised me, I just found myself not using it until I switched back to the Pioneer.