Hi Horacio

Welcome to TAS !
Someone here will have a good idea on amps

Can you listen to any of these easily ?

Hi Horacio and welcome to TAS.

I had the use of an Art Audio Quintet in my system some years ago and thought it a very good amplifier. I am not familiar with the Radford STA-35 but I did know the 25 quite well.

Based on my personal preference, I'd go for the Art Audio. However, try and listen if you possibly can.

Hi Horacio and welcome to The Audio Standard from me.
I am a long term user of the old Radford STA-15, an amp I know extremely well. I will never part with it. I also own a pair of old Levinson stereo amps that I bi-amp with. I switch between the two three or four times a year. My speakers are pretty power hungry Mirage M3-Si and the Radford (22 watts in real life) copes pretty well with them.

I haven't spent a lot of time with the Woodside that you are looking at, but have heard it sounding well a few times, back when it was available new.

Moving on to Art Audio, I had the pleasure of having a pair of the Tempo monoblocks in my system for a few weeks back in the 1990s - these were the basis for the amps that Jules refers to above, so I understand. They ran two pairs of EL34s per channel, so quite a bit of power on tap. There was a half power pseudo single ended mode to, I seem to remember. They were superb and I really liked them. However, after they left, I bought the Radford, so I think that probably tells you all you need to know from my point of view!

The Art Audio does look beautiful though!

Thank you chaps for the great suggestions.

I do not have the chance to listen to either amplifier, one is in Canada, the other in Nottingham. I had a ST-15 too many years ago, also a Leak and QUADs. Nowadays they are seen as absolute top shelf stuff because the secret to all these amps are the transformers, hand wound, all beautifully English made and an art that's been long lost, except for some Japanese exotic transformer winders like Tango, Tamura, Sowter in Cambridgeshire or Canadian Plitron.

I remember that when I heard that Woodside Audio was launching a new series of valve amps I immediately contacted Sir Arthur, he told me that Woodside hired several old employees just to wind the new transformers the same way they did in the past.

A dear friend of mine, who passed away years ago, told me that the glory days of audio - the true golden age of hi-fi - was this period, the late forties through the late sixties, and tubes illuminated the scene. What remained from that era was, surprisingly, not usually sought out of reverence for the old but for quality of construction and sonics. He said that sweaty ironworkers no longer purified the iron as they once did, Wonderful PCB-capacitor dielectric material is now banned as carcinogenic. Cobalt, for alnico magnets, is now a strategic and costly element.

Cheers,

Hi Horacio

Welcome to the forum.
Whilst being a classical devotee I can't advise on your current quandary - I'm not familiar with Radford or Art Audio gear, and my only advice about Tannoys would be to avoid them!

But it would be good if you involved yourself in the classical music threads here, it's always good to share discoveries and opinions.

We try to keep discussion of politics and religion off the open forum.

Hi Horacio

As this is a free-of-charge forum, we cannot host photos. Therefore you will need to use a host like Flickr to show your photos. Flickr is free below about 1000 photos, and it doesn't take long to create an account.