On Sep 3, 5:52 pm, "Phil Allison" wrote:
"Steve"
Recently, I found a great old amplifier. It was made in Britain and
imported into the US by British Radio Electronics, Ltd. Here are
pictures of it and ads about it.
http://public.fotki.com/farleybob/williamson/
It has two chassis and when I first saw them from a distance, I
thought they were a pair of QUAD II's. Then I thought they just
knocked off the QUAD look, but the amp was released in Sept. 1952,
which I think predates the QUAD.
** Only just.
It does lead to an interesting question though, about the casework
chronology and provenance. We all know that casework is tiresome,
timeconsuming and expensive, and no less so for manufacturers than for
DIYers. Considering the connection between Walker and Williamson, and
the fact that Acoustical was rooted in contract work, it seems to me
exceedingly likely that this amp was built for the distributor by
Acoustical in Huntingdon. (Acoustical was Peter Walker's company; it
was not called QUAD then; QUAD was the Quality Unit Audio, not a
suitable company name!).
In the QUAD (that is, first series, after the QUAD.12 and before the
QUAD II) promo/operating booklet, it is categorically stated that
Acoustical did "all metal work, finishing" etc in-house under the
supervision of the AID department (whatever that may be). In Britain
at this time, and well beyond the Quad II period, any manufacturer who
didn't want to lose his reputation took very great care of metal
preparation. (For instance, one of the bugbears of Rolls-Royce and
Bentley of this period is mu-metal pitting on door handles and other
brightwork one handles, ugly --and rough on fine pigskin gloves -- and
not capable of refinishing to the standard required for successful
rechroming.)
The question then arises,
a) was the Williamson designed first and found good and adapted for
the QUAD II?
OR
b) was the QUAD II designed and ready to go, and the design adapted to
the Williamson, perhaps with QUAD II bent metalwork blanks just taken
off the shelf and punched in different places?
I have no difficulty in believing that Walker would put off the launch
of his own product to produce the Williamson first. There was then
detailed bureaucratic allocation of materials, the government
deliberately gave manufacturers of exports preference in materials
allocation (you couldn't even buy the Rolls mentioned above in England
until into the 1950s -- they were all for export). Thus the
Williamson, clearly an export order, would have taken precedence, and
may well have been the mechanism which allowed Walker to launch the
QUAD II at all, perhaps with a little materials "siphoning" between
the projects.
The Q22, as badge-engineered for the Williamson, was already a
standing product at this time, having progressed in recognizable form
from the earlier models of QUAD amps listed above. I don't know at
what precise date the Q22 acquired the row of selector buttons along
the bottom; perhaps the Williamson was their first appearance.
***
Those of you who aren't as fascinated by QUAD II as those of us with
more culture should keep quiet either now or when we stick the pins in
your wax doll. Being fascinated by QUAD is at least better than being
obsessed by Madonna (I'm not; I left my literary publishers when they
greedily published her book of self-pornography) -- and a hundred
times better than being obsessed with Kylie, even for an Australian
(1).
***
Hey, Phil, don't you miss the "authoritative* views of Pinkerton on
QUAD? Rolling on the carpet!
Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at
http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information
for the tube audio constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site
containing vital gems of wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review
(1) And, to save the usual dumb clucks the effort of accusing me of
being an ocker-knocker, I should confess that I'm an Australian too. I
just admire a better class of Australian, like Barry Humphries and
Paul Hogan (I used to write one-liners for the latter when we were
both young and hungry -- literally, I mean; we met in a King's Cross
caff where the waitress would serve appreciably bigger meals to
handsome young men).
The ads claim that the amp was
actually planned and authorized by DTN Williamson.
Does anyone else pot transformers in this fashion, except QUAD? I
know that Williamson was had just authored a paper with Peter Walker
on the QUAD II circuit in response to the Ultralinear circuit, and
that they were working together on the ESL. Is it possible that
Acoustical mfg. did a run of amps under a different for Williamson?
The preamp shipped with the amp was a rebranded QC II. Again, I'd say
it's strictly a copy of QUAD's trade dress, except that it appears
that this amp was introduced first.
** As you say, the pre-amp is simply a badge engineered Quad QC2.
The pics of the two chassis and their internals indicate they were produced
by Acoustical, under some contract arrangement with Mr Williamson.
Find another one - you can have stereo !
...... Phil