For some of us, the names Leak and Quad will bring back memories of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. You’d be right in thinking that they are older names, but they were once at the forefront of the British hifi scene. While both companies were known for high quality audio products, and innovative design, Leak had stopped producing new products by the late 70s, and Quad went through to the mid 90s before going through a couple of changes in ownership. Thanks to the IAG Group, both names are alive in the modern world! While Quad has had a fairly consistent set of products over the past couple of decades, Leak has long been gone… until now!

We’ll start off with one of our favourite products from Quad, the Artera Solus Play If you are the owner of an original Linn Classik, the Solus Play will be a familiar product to you. It’s one of those ‘do-it-all’ boxes, and one of the best ones around, especially when you factor in cost per feature. Quad themselves refer to it as their “Wireless Streaming Integrated Amplifier / DAC / Preamplifier / CD Player”. This is a pretty impressive list as it is, but have a look at this list of features and see for yourself just how versatile the unit is.

Wireless Streaming via DTS Play-Fi app
Built in FM radio
Hi-Res Audio capabilities - up to 24bit/192Khz using ‘critical listening mode’
Standard mode is 16bit/48Khz, more affectionately known as CD quality.
Onboard CD player
Multiroom
Dedicated headphone amplifier circuit
Bluetooth

These are just a handful of our favourite features, but when you dive in you will find that it has a lot more in its arsenal.

Rear panel of the Quad Artera Solus Play

“But how does it sound?” I hear you ask… well, the short answer is it sounds great. It’s not necessarily going to blow you away if you’re used to a very high end system, but if you’re after one box to do everything well, then you’re in the right place. It has a smooth and detailed sound, but still manages to be quite musical, and when paired with the right speakers, it sings. It handles everything from orchestral music, to punk, to house music and everything in between, and showed little sign of struggling. It will drive pretty much any sensibly matched speakers, with the exception of the larger harder to drive types.

A customer recently tested the Solus Play against a Naim CD5si and Nait 5si combination, and although he agreed that the Naim sounded a little better when playing CDs, the difference wasn’t so big that he wanted to turn down the extra features of the Quad, and to be honest we weren’t surprised. Of course, the Quad and the Naim system aren’t equally matched in terms of build quality, and they definitely sound different. Quad is much smoother than Naim in general, some people don’t like this smoothness, and some love it! It’s all subjective and there is nothing wrong with preferring one over the other.

Streaming apps all differ from each other, and some people will have their favourites. The DTS Play-Fi App that is used with the Quad is not as slick as some, however, there is a big update promised at some point in 2021 which should address this..

If you are in the market for a versatile one box solution or you are one of those using an older Linn Classiks you should give this Quad some serious thought. (Linn Classik are becoming dated and a lot of parts are now obsolete, which means that when things start to go wrong, they are no longer fixable).

What about the Leak?

The Stereo 130 amp will bring back memories of their original Stereo 30 (famously pictured with Jimi Hendrix!!). It certainly looks the part, and it fits the bill of looking ‘vintage’. I mean, just look at the Art Deco ‘LEAK’ logo, that is a huge throwback. When you pair it with the CDT, you get a pretty nice looking system. Sure, you wouldn’t have had a CD player in 1971, but in 2021, some of us still love our CD collections. Of course, this does mean having two boxes, but when they look this cool…

Let’s not get too carried away though, you won’t find any valves present in this one. To be fair, at this price point, there was never going to be a chance of any valves lurking in the back.

So what does it sound like then?

Well, it certainly needs a bit of time to run in, as straight out of the box the sound was a bit bland, but we find that there isn’t a single piece of electronic equipment that doesn’t need to run in for some amount of time. When you look at the unit, you may be coerced into believing it will sound “vintage”, which really doesn’t mean all that much. Sure, it isn’t going to sound like that old valve amp you had back in the day, but it isn’t designed to. What it does have is a clear, open presentation with no undue emphasis on different frequencies. With the direct button engaged the sound opens up even more, while still remaining controlled.

Rear panel of the Stereo 130 showing all available inputs and outputs.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the Stereo 130 is that it leans more on the side of pristine, clean and smooth, rather than the sonic richness one might expect from vintage style gear. I personally think this is a plus point for the Leak, but one could be forgiven for being a little disappointed if you expected the old Leak sound.

At only 45 watts a channel (63w at 4ohms), it isn’t going to drive every speaker out there, but it handled all of the stand-mounted speakers we threw at it, from Rega, ProAc and Dynaudio. If you take a little bit of time to pair this amp well, it will form the centre of a very respectable system.

In terms of features, it falls short of the Quad, but it isn’t limited by this. It has an MM phono stage built in, as well as two additional RCA aux inputs, and 3 digital inputs. The addition of the phono stage is a huge plus compared to the Quad if you’re a vinyl fan. The CDT being a transport - as indicated by the ’T’ - means that it can only be plugged in through a digital cable, but this does mean you get to keep all of your RCA’s free for extra boxes. It also has a handy little usb socket on the front,which gives you the ability to play your music stored from external usb drives, if correctly formatted.

So there you have it, two interesting products with a different approach to hi-fi pleasure. When factoring in the Quad’s streaming capabilities, it might make it more difficult to choose between them. Both units are great, but not exactly comparable, so it really comes down to the features you think you want most!

Give us a call and arrange to come in and hear them for yourself, as with all hifi, it’s always best to hear things for yourself!

John, Paul, and Chris - Audio T Brighton

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