Alongside the company’s electrostatic speakers, still being manufactured in their latest iterations, nothing is more quintessentially QUAD than the 33 preamplifier and partnering 303 stereo power amplifier, first launched in 1967 and still doing good business on the used hi-fi market. It’s not hard to see why: the combination is compact, has a classic look unlike anything else, and still offers excellent performance, and many 33/303s are still doing fine service.

About £400-500 will buy you the pair in decent condition, while spending a further £350 will get both serviced, cleaned, any faulty components replaced and a thorough test. Think £800 or so for a fully restored 33/303 and it becomes a rather tempting prospect, one to which I have almost succumbed over the years, and very much still on my ‘one day’ list.

However, now there’s an alternative: as part of current owner IAG’s policy of reviving and modernising models from its brands’ back catalogues, from Mission and Wharfedale speakers to amplifiers from Leak and Audiolab, it has recently released new versions of the duo, featuring updated takes on the styling, and with some modernisation of the internal layouts and facilities, while remaining faithful to the originals. Incidentally, the reworking has been carried out by a team very much immersed in what’s now known as the ‘brand values’: it included Rob Flain & Paul McConville, described as ‘the world’s most experienced QUAD service engineers’; Jan Ertner (who has three decades of QUAD design); acoustic director Peter Comeau; and industrial designer David McNeill, who has worked with the brand for 20 years.

Selling for £1199 apiece, the newcomers perhaps more evoke the style of the 1967 models rather than following it slavishly, and while and the basics of the electronic design are retained, much has been done to bring the products up to the demands of modern systems, as is clear from the labelling of the inputs. You now get a phono input, with switchable MM/MC operation, three line inputs on RCA phonos and one on balanced XLRs, a remote control and a 6.35mm headphone socket, driven from a dedicated amplifier circuit within. And the outputs to the power amplifier have changed, too, from a dedicated cable to standard RCA/XLR connections, matched on the 303.

The external changes are relatively subtle – though still, it seems, enough to rile the QUAD purists. The overall colour has changed from the taupe of the original to silver-grey, for example, and there’s a black on orange LCD panel below the rotary controls (for balance and Quad’s bass/tilt tone controls), while the mix of white and orange buttons has given way to an all-orange array. The tone controls can be bypassed, there’s a button to dim or switch off the display illumination, the remote handset duplicates and extends all the preamp’s functions, and there are 12V trigger connections to switch the power amp on and off in tandem with the preamp’s standby function.

True the designers could have gone much further: some recent QUAD amp designs have digital audio inputs and even Bluetooth, but this preamp is an all-analogue design. However, there is a USB port for the upgrading of the preamp’s firmware when updates are available, another sure sign things have moved on since 1967.

The 303 power amplifier has gained an orange standby button on the front to match those on the preamp, but still uses the ‘triples’ output stage developed by QUAD founder Peter Walker for what was the company’s first transistor power amplifier, for thermal stability and low distortion. The power amp delivers just under 50W per channel into 8ohms, and 70W into 4ohms, and there’s also the option of bridging it for more power. At the push of a rear-panel button, the 303 becomes a mono amp capable of up to 170W, meaning you have to add a second 303 for the other channel.

PERFORMANCE

It would be unfair to expect the new 33/303 pairing to be a facsimile of the original; after all this isn’t a slavish recreation of those classics, but rather a modern take on those products using totally up to date components and manufacturing. I’ve seen it described elsewhere as a ‘reimagining’, but I’m not sure that’s the right term: I prefer to see it as what it is, which is simply what the duo would have been if developed now, not then.

Nor is it fair to draw comparisons between old and new: it’s been a while since I heard an original 33/303 used in anger, but I know QUAD enthusiasts tend to covet them. More germane is how this new version measures up against modern competition, a vital consideration if it’s ever to be more than a novelty product standing out from a sea of ‘me too’ amplifier designs.

The 33/303, 2024 style, certainly doesn’t conform to any ‘soft and lush’ stereotypes often applied to vintage equipment: rather the balance is both rich and well controlled in the bass, but also open and fresh up through the midband and treble, as well as being easily tuneable using the bass and tilt controls provided. The first of these is self-explanatory, though very subtle in its action, but the tilt control allows the simultaneous application of a little treble lift and the same amount of bass cut, or vice versa, which makes it simple to adjust the sound to compensate for personal tastes, speaker characteristics or overly bright recordings.

There’s more than enough power here to drive most speakers with which these amplifiers are likely to be used, and I achieved impressive results with my PMC prodigy5 floorstanders, which responded well to the QUADs’ generous but controlled bass, open midband and clean, sweet treble. That’s the case whether with solo instrumental recordings or larger scale works, or indeed when the two are combined, as in the superb Janine Jansen/Oslo Philharmonic recording of the Sibelius Violin Concerto on Decca, where the colours of Jansen’s Stradivarius and the immaculate balance with the orchestra simply flow from the speakers.

However one looks at the new 33/303, this is a superb amplifier, and excellent value for money – hopefully it will attract new buyers, and not just appeal to those with a nostalgic glow in our eyes.