New Heathkit AS101 owner - First post.

[alancohen]

Update: So...I got my 15W OTL wired and fired last night. I got the wrong transformer with the kit and it was quickly replaced. The tubes are still buring in, but it already sounds amazing. Near as I can descibe it, it just sounds...naked. An analogy would be trying to read the paper with my 50+ year old eyes and then putting on my reading glasses. I don't have to try and hear detail, it's just presented to me my ears.

I love how the bottom is just there. It used to be that if I wanted to "hear the bass" I had to hit the ol' loudness button, turn the bass tone control up, raise the left side of the EQ or at the very least, turn up the volume. With this amp, at very modest sound levels, when a low frequency passage comes by it just presents itself...in all it's thunderous glory. As a matter of fact, I do not have ANY tone controls whatsoever now. Nor do I need any. Sweet.

But I do have a problem. I use an audiophile pressing of Larry Carlton's, "Alone, But Never Alone" as my component test source since I know it well. The lows and mids are spectacular and are obvioulsy well engineered. But there are small chimes used in several songs and now I notice their presence seems muted. They just don't sparkle the way I'm sure the recording engineer intended. I never noticed it as much before because my other amps must have muted everything else to a similar degree.

So I'm wondering if this high end limitation is a function of the stock XO, or the 806A/811B. I remember reading a bunch of Zilch's threads where he pounded on the high-end roll off of the Valencia's (and Heathkits too). He seemed to think that a reworked XO would help. If that's the case then my bi-amping with active crossover might alleviate the issue.

Thoughts?