Quote Originally Posted by alancohen View Post
Thanks VOTT! Yeah, I think I have some 288s (291s) and a pair of 1005Bs in my future someday, but not now. I'm not ready for a dedicated audio room yet. I'll quote Bruce Rozenblit, "Audio gear should be designed to share space with human beings. It has to fit in a room and have space left over for people." Besides, my audio budget is stretched pretty thin. I'll spend a year or two listening to what I have and in the mean time build up the reserves. I find you can get the best deals when you're not in a hurry and can wait for the right situation to come along.

Speaking of Bruce...I just fired up my 15W OTL this morning for the first time! Tubes are burning in and I will set the bias after another cup of coffee. So far so good. It's not making sound yet, but at least it's not smoking.

DSCF0736 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Wow--that amp looks great! Hope you don't mind, I lightened the photo with photoshop to get a better look (although your darker photo does look really "cool" with the glow of the tubes!).

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BTW, I wasn't suggesting that you need to upgrade--just thought that since you mentioned you were interested in a lower crossover point that you'd get a kick out of seeing a pair of Altec horns (I don't see 311's locally every day) that were designed for a lower crossover point. My AS 101's were the "Cadillac" speakers in my home for quite a while--I was in no hurry to upgrade them because they sounded so phenomenal once I did the crossover restoration. I'm glad to hear that you plan on keeping yours as your main speakers for a good year or two--who knows, after you hear them biamped you may decide to keep them as your "first string" speakers even longer. A lower crossover point isn't necessarily an upgrade anyways--I used to own a pair of A7-500's back in the 90's (511b horn/500 hz crossover) and my AS 101's sounded considerably better than they did -- especially for home hi fi use (and they both had 416 woofers). I currently own Model 19's with a 1200 hz crossover (yes, the 416's play up to 1200 hz), and the Altec midrange magic is amazing on them. The mids sound phenomenal and the crossover is very smooth and seemless at 1200 hz. I'm very interested to hear what the AS 101's sound like bi-amped. Mine sounded so great with the restored crossovers, I can only imagine what taking them to the next level will do...