André Jute's reference and backup equipment as a music critc from the beginning was QUAD. He also takes a keen interest in restoring and playing QUAD vintage equipment.
The QUALITY UNIT AMPLIFIER, DOMESTIC or QUAD
(before the QUAD II)
The cover. Don't even ask where the amplifier and control set went. Note that in 1951 Peter Walker's firm was still called The Acoustical Manufacturing Co, Ltd. Later it would be renamed for its most famous product.
p1. But the USP is already firmly in place.
p2. Notice the elegant design and typography, very Bauhaus. Peter Walker was an elegant engineer of the refined punctilio, and it shows in everything he did.
p3. Simple, clear description. In those days even engineers spoke comprehensible English.
p4. The control unit and main amplifier, the latter intended to be hidden in a cabinet. The control unit was built on the cast aluminium front plate, the case merely a cover.
p5.The control unit was intended to be mounted on the fascia of a cabinet.
p5, with its overlay. Even in cramped, rationed postwar Britain, Peter Walker was willing to sanction the latest in design. It worked a bit better than it photographs with my instant camera (elderly Canon Digital IXUS 300).
p5. The overlay with white backing.
p6. The Circuit Description for laymen.
p7, still the Circuit Description.
p8. A single glimpse at these graphs is enough to confirm that the QUAD in the booklet, only retrospectively named QUAD I, and the later, very famous QUAD II, are closely related indeed.
p9. The meat. Acoustical was an engineering company led by a civilized man who didn't mind explaining the technicalities to laymen, but its pride was its engineering prowess, and it show in its literature.
p10. More engineering spec.
p11. The dimensioned drawings for housing the units. Bottom left, the dimensions of the cutout (template supplied) for the control unit. No screws showed from the front once it was mounted. Walker attended to every aesthetic detail with the same obsessive perfectionism he brought to the electronics.
p12. The Acoustical factory. It didn't look much different when I made pilgrimage from Cambridge to Huntingdon three decades later.
•André Jute’s most recent book on aesthetics in action is
Grids: the structure of graphic design (Rotovision, Switzerland).
