Pre amp for Quad 306

[Martyn Miles]

I used a passive with the 303 I purchased, but I needed a phono input and a Pro-Ject Box was obtained.
It all worked OK, but was a little untidy with cables, power supplies, etc. Back to Quad, I thought...
A early model 34 was found for me by a TAOS Member on another Forum's sales section and I obtained it for £100.
It was OK, but when I purchased a Denon DL110 MC the MM input's sensitivity required adjustment.
I found Keith Snook on the Internet, who specialises in Quad amplifiers.
He altered the sensitivity and serviced the Quad 34.
I have to say that, as far as I am concerned, the 34 matches the passive I used and has very useful tone shaping, which really does work.

[walpurgis]

I'm not knocking your choices, but have you heard a 306 Martyn? It's a little marvel at the price they can be got for. It's much nicer sounding than the 303 (in my opinion) and it works well with a passive pre-amp.

[southall-1998]

I actually like the Quad 405.

Gentle little beast

S.

[struth]

I like the 306 myself. Its a very nice sounding amp, although never knew it worked with a passive at a level to get geoff all praisy

[DSJR]

Echo the gain adjustment change on the 306. As supplied, a passive should be fine if the interconnects aren't very long (couple of metres or less I think), but with gain reduced at the power amp, a proper line buffered preamp would push lots more millivolts down the pre-power interconnects and this is the way I'd go

I rate Dada electronics for Quad updates (I prefer saying this to mods/bodges in this case). The 34/44 and 306 benefit hugely from subtle tweaking and as the later grey finished ones were slightly better anyway (even Quad updated internally when they could), you may not need to do much.

[synsei]

I like the 306 myself. Its a very nice sounding amp, although never knew it worked with a passive at a level to get geoff all praisy

Geoff heard my set up (BTE passive/306) when he delivered the Meridian to me Grant, the combination sounded particularly sweet with his rather special DAC in situ

[twotone]

I've been listening to my Quad's for the past two weeks and love them, the pre-amp is excellent and so too is the on-board phono stage.

I love the way that the amp automatically switches to the Radio input on switch on, volume is a wee bit loud though even at the first click on the volume control.

The Quads are really very vinyl friendly though.

I'll not be moving these two amps on anytime soon.

Tony

[DSJR]

Cut the power amp gain down (there may be an intermediate setting if the main one is too much )

[twotone]

Cut the power amp gain down (there may be an intermediate setting if the main one is too much )

The pre has been set to work with the 306 Dave 500mv I think rather than 1.5MV.

The pre has the full monty upgrades done BTW, I bought it from Rob (the Quad guy) on PFM.

"I'll set the 34 for 500mv output so that it works with the 306 but will also be fine with the larger 405 and 606 should you ever land one"

http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/s...d.php?t=165992

As an aside, Santa has brought me The Beatles Mono Boxset which I'm just about to start playing on the Techie, how do I use the mono switch on the Quad pre, do I just move the balance to one speaker or keep it balanced for the two speakers and turn the volume up?

I noticed when I switched the mono switch while playing a record previously that the volume dropped quite a bit, is the mono switch only used for the radio input?