Mentmore M100 Michaelson and Austin


Can anyone give me any information about Mentmore M-100 monoblocks? Designed by Tim deParavicini for Michaelson and Austin, which later became Mentmore. EL34 parallel push-pull, 75W. That's all I know. I have them in mind to drive my Quad 63s. Are they good? Any suggestions what would be a good price? Thanks in advance...
lutenist

Showing 2 responses by stanwal

They were tested in HiFi Choice no.44 in 1986. They did not recommend them. they said " This amp offered a mixed performance.the treble rolled off early, removing some air and sparkle from the sound, while the high frequency power delivery was poor. The stereo reproduction was to a high quality but the bass performance was not in the same league". Unless they are very cheap there are better choices. These amps were rated at 100 watts, but into a 4 ohm load one channel driven they produced only 3.7dBW rather than their 20 dBW rating at 20 kHz. I was a Quad dealer for years and used and sold 63s and this does not look like a good match to me. I hesitate to give any recommendation as all the amps I used are long discontinued.
Some of the best were the Stax class A amps, the DA 80 and 100s. I also used Krell KSA 50s, Musical Fidelity 270s and possibly Meridian 605s. As you can see these were from the late 80s and early 90s. I used other amps earlier but these were better. A friend uses a rebuilt Heathkit tube amp from the early days of stereo on the 57s I sold him in the 70s and it sounds great. It sounds as if you have addressed all the major weaknesses of the 63s. The 63s are a hard speaker to proscribe for, they don't need a lot of power but you can use a powerful amp if you stay within their capabilities. I am not a tube user but they work well with the Quad, perhaps you could post a query here or on the HIFICRITIC site as to which tube amps work best. There are many dedicated Quad users on the latter and they would welcome a description of your modifications. Hope this helps. Stan