Amp for Quad ESL 57

Music Reference RM10 MKII- try it, you'll like it -- alot.

I have a friend who is using the Red Wine Audio Signature 30.2 to drive a pair of ESL 57s and I have never heard the 57s sound so good and he has tried many amps - tubed and solid state, some costing many times the price. He saw this comment about the combo in this review
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/redwine8/302_3.html
and decided to try it out and was equally amazed and so was I. Only 30 watts per channel, but lots of current from the sealed lead acid batteries and the strange impedance of the 57s does not seems to bother the 30.2.

The sound is warm rich and tube like but with very accurate bass response and nice dynamic range. I also recently received my 30.2 and am equally impressed, but I don't run Quads but I am thinking of getting a pair of Waynes ESL 57s now! FWIW...

Jeff

The Music Reference RM10 was designed by Roger Modjeski for use with his Quad Electrostatics. New they are $1950 (good luck finding a used one - $1,000ish), they are small, only 14lbs, just six small inexpensive tubes with the power tubes (EL84) rated for 10,000 hours. Have no idea how they compare to the RW, but these are fantastic amps desinged by one of the great designers made for use with his Quads -- worth consideration, I think.

Atmasphere; thank you for your response.

I love my Quad ESL speakers but my intention in this post is to offer some accolades for the EAR 861.

With the Quads, I can say that for the money, this is the best hi-fi that I have had in my home. It is also, now, a musical reference point for me that I judge all other systems by.

The EAR 861 also drives my Wilson Benesch Curves quite nicely too. It has enough grunt to give them life (although they are not too difficult of a speaker to drive).

The flexibility that the amp offers of using XLR or single-ended inputs on the EAR 861 is also advantageous. It is my preference right now to run a completely balanced system with a digital source, and then with a flip of a switch on the amp, I run a completely single-ended system with an analog source.

The EAR 861 is not a very common amp to find in the US (although the Japanese love it). It took me a while to track mine down, but it was worth the effort.