A Fresh Look at the Quad 33

The Quad 33 from birth has always looked contemporary. The autumnal colour scheme, flush tone and filter knobs and the overall aura, is a pleasure to behold. In a modern hi-fi setting it can look out of place among the black, or silver, counterparts, but stood alone or complementing the Quad 303, it still holds its own. The 33 is a good example of an archetypal design. Performance wise? .. we will dig deeper below the pleasing exterior and examine it from an electronic perspective, as well as from a listeners point of view. In addition, we will look at any short comings and things to look out for before spending more money on your ‘new’ ebay purchase.

The performance

The Quad 33 schematic is freely available on the world wide web and elsewhere, so we won’t show it here. Suffice to say, the discrete transistor circuitry was and still is, very respectable. It offers a good frequency response, low, ,noise and low total harmonic distortion, with a sound stage, more than good enough, for normal living room listening. For proof of this, you only need to refer to the many attempts at ‘improving’ the 33’s performance by vendors over the decades. Each selling ‘their version of ‘Disc’, ‘Tape’,’Tone’ and ‘Front end’ replacement cards, using op-amps in place of discrete transistors. The buyers, often stating, after fitting these items, ‘I can’t tell any difference’. Some vendors, even went further, fitting a separate PSU along with the new cards, and still received a similar response. So electronically, as far as sound reproduction is concerned, the 33 fits the bill! That’s why the 33 was so popular and for such a prolonged period. I said, ‘was’, because today, after all those decades, several things have conspired to lessen the 33s appeal. One thing that remains at the fore, it’s still visually, very appealing! click to continue