Our beloved quad gear is getting old!

[quadanasaziland]

I talk with quadbob at least every sunday night and last night's session was mainly about Gerardo's D-1 (don't mean to steal Gerardo's thunder). Bob has just finished recapping it with regular caps (no poly's used) and calibrating it. He A B'd against his D-1000 that was made in 1982 (for those who don't know about the D-1000, it was an audiophile version of the variomatrix that was produced in Japan only in small #'s years after quad was DOA. It had fets and poly's which made it a fast decoder with lower distortion). Compared to Bob's D-1000 Gerardo's D-1 sounded cleaner according to them. This is troublesome! The guys who run modern gear with vintage decoders don't have as much to worry about but a lot of us run vintage gear with a sprinkling of modern stuff (this is the case in my quad room). Before Bob heard Gerardo's newly capped D-1 he thought his D-1000 was tits. So what we are talking about is a slow degradation that untill we have some thing to compare with, we don't notice. Most of us already know this so this is not news to most but it really hit home as we talked and I looked at my quad rack (SE'9 eq's, DBX200's, 224's,3Bx and other companders, RTR's, demod, Marantz center channel amp, so on) and saw red ink. Bob has done a couple of my pieces like my Tate and my Q8 deck and the difference was very noticable! I envy you guyz that work on this stuff I don't. I have gotten quite a few vintage quad units on ebay and maybe 25% of them didn't have cap problems. So what can we do? Go modern with stand alone decoders (as many do). Great except for one thing for me, I love my vintage babies! Guess I will just have to be money poor and quad rich!

Dave

 

[quadgdiaz]

hi Dave

i'm a very happy quadcamper, my QSD-1 sound so freaking good that i just can't get over it. but after we finish with our A B's comparacion quadbob decided to re-cap his QSD-1000 then put polycaps on my QSD-1 them re-do the AB's again. just to make it even ??? so far i'm ahead. round 2 comming soon i hope !!!!! i'm also thinking in how to hold up a Bank so i can pay quad bob for the next re-cap jobs, he needs to do my 2 Q8 players and other things, or just have to be money poor and quad rich too. thanks Gerardo

 

[Cai Campbell]

I don't see how the QSD-1000 can compete with the QSD-1. Sure, the QSD-1000 may use better parts and look cooler, but it is still a single band unit compared to the triple-band QSD-1. I've only talked to two folks who had both units, and in both cases they preferred the stock QSD-1 over the stock QSD-1000.

I've been debating whether I should get my QSD-1 recapped now or later. It sounds great for now, but I know its only a matter of time before it needs to be recapped. I hate to pony up the dough if it doesn't need it, but if I wait too long, there may not be anyone around willing to do the job that is actually familiar with the thing!

What to do, what to do...

 

[QUADNUTS]

WELL I HAVE HAD MY QSD-1 SINCE NEW IN 76 AND ABOUT 20 YEARS AGO I HAD 2 MODS DONE TO IT.(1) IT HAS THE SAME BLEND RESISTORS IN THE UNIT AS THE QRX 9001,HAD THEM REMOVED TO HAVE MORE SEPARATION.(2)THE FRONT END OF THESE UNITS WHERE SLOWED DOWN TO MORE CLOSELY MATCH PREAMP/PWR AMP SLEW RATES OF THE ERA.WHEN I STARTED RUNNING KENWOOD M1/M2A PWR AMPS THERE WAS WHAT COULD BE CALLED SLEW INDUCED DISTORTION.I HAD A TECH FRIEND OF MINE CHANGE THE FIRST STAGE TRANSISTORS TO A FASTER VARIETY,I THINK THEY WERE OUT OF A SQA-2B MARANTZ POCKET DECODER,AND THE S.I.D. WAS GONE! BUT TO GET BACK ON TRACK I HAVE TO PULL IT OUT WITHIN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS TO RECAP AND I AM THINKING OF GOING THE POLY ROUTE. NOT A BAD TRACK RECORD,ONLY HAD IT OUT TWICE IN THE LAST 20 YRS TO CLEAN CONTROLS AND SWITCHES!

 

[quadanasaziland]

Interesting post!

Dave

 

[JonUrban]

Dave - Where is QuadBob. He should join up. I have a few CDs to send him, I am just waiting to do a few more for him. Tell him to sign up!!

:-jon

 

[quadgdiaz]

hi Jon

i have told quadbob 100's of times to join the club, he said do we want him to spent the time sitting on a keyboard or working on the quad stuff ???? since he has 4 9001's to rebuilt and put the poly cap's on my QSD-1 & recap one of my AKAI CR-80D-SS i think we all want him to work on the quad stuff, don't we ?????? he check's the site from time to time. but he's too busy with his regular job + all the quad refurnishing stuff. but will ask him for the 101's time this weekend when i see him to drop us a line ok thanks Gerardo

 

[quadanasaziland]

Hey Jon, ya what Gerardo said. Sez he would spend to much time posting straightning us all out... just kidding! That's for Bob cuz I know he checks often.

Dave

 

[jsrstereo]

I'm new to this forum and must ask: who/what /where is quadbob? I have a Fosgate 3601 Series II that needs fixing and wonder if quadbob can help? Does anyone have an opinion as to how the Fosgate stacks up against QRX? thanks from John

 

[Quadzilla]

Bob Popham is the Fosgate guru. He did an amazing job with my $51 Tate unit from eBay. He worked with Jim Fosgate and he knows the stuff better than most. Very nice guy to deal with too. Check out his website ...
www.rjpc.com I would recommend him highly! Mike.

 

[quadanasaziland]

John do a google search for Quadbob and all the quad pages he is mentioned in will come up. As far as Quadbob goes he only restores Tate 101A's and 2nd generation Sansui variomatrix units oh and the occcaisional RTR, Q8's and he's doing my 3bx's right now.

Some one refresh me, does Popham do recaps or just fix/cal. what's wrong on Tates?

Dave

 

[sspsandy]

Bob does a complete overhaul, when he did mine I got a bagful of old caps and whatnot back, and the unit is like new.

 

[quadanasaziland]

What does he (Bob Popham) charge for a complete resto?

Dave

 

[Quadzilla]

I think it was $125 for labour and the caps he replaced. Mine needed the Tate chips as well, and he had some guy's parts unit there who sold be the chips for $100 ... total bill with auction price, all shipping and repairs ... about US$300. Just like new now though, maybe better with his upgrades. Well worth it!

Mike.

 

[quadanasaziland]

John I typed in quadbob and a couple of things came up (bored at work today) but not what I thought would come up. Here's a link to one of the quad site's.
www.geocities.com/quadaudio/sitemap.html

 

[Obbop]

Hey!!!! That's my site!!!!!!

 

[quadanasaziland]

Still a go to after all this time!

 

[Obbop]

I'm slowly redoing the site to improve the readability.

The site creator they have isn't that great and I don't have the time to use Front Page and FTP a site... maybe later.

I have some new info, also, but nothing earth shattering.