Can anyone recommend a second hand amp to drive a pair of spare q acoustic 3050i floorstanders that I want to give to my brother?
Bit difficult unless you give a bit more direction! Do you want something old and cheap but good, or something newer with fancy connectivity etc?
Old but still good - Pioneer A400, Audiolab 8000A?
Old, cheap and good. There seem to be a lot of options for adding connectivity after!
Musical Fidelity X-A1 has been suggested so far.
What source is he using? If its a turntable might be worth getting an amp with a built in phono amp. I'd say anything japanese that is powerful and nice looking, like marantz or somesuch.
At best a CD player and at worst Spotify at 320kbps - no need for a phono amp.
Will have a look for the suggested pioneers etc 🙂
NAD 3020 is another old classic that might be available a bit cheaper than the other two.
Best option - Rotel RA820. Superb little amp, very simple, the first Far East amp designed for the U.K. market. Stripped right down, no tone controls, IIRC, balance was carried out with a split volume control, large toroidal transformer, and capable of going a lot louder than its nominal 20w/channel indicated.
Just a lovely bit of kit that does all it needs to do.
I sold a lot of them back in the early/mid 80’s just by demoing with good recordings.
https://www.hifidatabase.com/Detailed/Rotel_RA-820AX_786.php
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F323955910116
I’ll check but unfortunately I think 25w per channel is the minimum required for the 3050is.
I’d 2nd the Rotels. I’ve got 2 of them still in service nearly 20 years on. 1 I bought new in ‘98 and I thought was broken 5 years back, so I found a replacement on eBay for £30, but then I discovered the internal glass fuse that had blown, now have 2 fully working.
I wouldn't want to run those speakers on any amp with less than 60 watts RMS power so just something to bare in mind.
Dunno if any use but I have a Denon M37DAB that is about 8 years old and free to anyone who wants it, along with a pair of Wharfedale Diamond 9.1 speakers of same age. All work fine, just needed some space so replaced with a Sonos last week. Bit bulky so pickup Glasgow south only ?
Have a look at nad c350 or c370 they would be a good match imho
I’ll check but unfortunately I think 25w per channel is the minimum required for the 3050is.
Seems the RA-820BX is 30w, but there’s also the amperage it puts out, which allows it to handle bigger loads, a bit like small valve amps can drive difficult speaker loads; iirc there were a lot of amps around poking out 100w+, but were pretty weedy when it came to driving decent speakers.
The RA-820AX is 30w and can handle 8-16 Ω speaker loads, the 829BX is 25w and can handle 4-16 Ω speaker loads.
Here’s a copy of a test on the later version of the RA-820, the RA-930AX, with actual lab results for current into load;