To complement the legendary valve power driving your loudspeakers the QC Twenty Four pre amp has been developed to give you simplistic and pure control over your audio sources.
Quad founder Peter Walker always believed that an amplifier should be as simple as possible – engineered with the fewest possible components and with a performance largely independent of those components. With the QC Twenty Four, Quad's designer scoured the globe for the very finest components, with possibly the best example of this being the ‘old stock’ 6111WA double triode. The 61 11WA is a military type with a lifetime of 60000 to 100000 hours so it should not need to be replaced for a long time into the future.
With transformers designed by one of the world’s leading authorities and relay input switching the musical signal is preserved in its purest form – pursuant to the philosophy of the theoretical perfect amplifier which Peter Walker himself stated is, ‘a straight wire with gain’. The QC Twenty Four has 2 main outputs, 2 Tape Play and Record connections and inputs for CD, Tuner, Aux 1, Aux 2 and an optional Phono port.
All Quad products are expected to last a lifetime – even longer. Many Quad customers still derive immense pleasure listening to products built only fifty years ago. The QC Twenty Four preamplifier is no exception, and with periodic servicing and a caring hand, you can expect its performance to continue for years to come.
The history of Quad is one of technical achievement in the field of sound reproduction. It is a story that began with the Quad 1 amplifier, which brought the benefits of 15 years knowledge and experience in professional audio and industrial products to the task of making the most accurate domestic audio amplifier of its age.A few years later, in 1953, the product which set the standard for amplifiers was the Quad II Power Amplifier, the time of Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation and the year in which Mount Everest was finally conquered. This amplifier pioneered the principle of cathode coupling through the output transformer to reduce harmonic distortion to almost negligible levels. Such was its clear superiority that this model remained in production for 18 years. Three years later, in 1956, Quad demonstrated the first true full-range electrostatic loudspeaker. This remarkable product (known later as the ESL 57) used a virtually mass-less plastic film as a moving diaphragm between two charged plates. Compared with moving coil loudspeakers, the ESL 57 was free of unwanted colourations and distortions. This landmark product remained in production, virtually unchanged, for 28 years.
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