tonyb

At 18 you might consider starting down the DIY path. The Bottlehead Foreplay preamp would be a great start in learning how to build tube amps. The value of what you'd learn would exceed the price of the kit; and you would have a very good preamp as a result. Also you'd be introduced to the Bottlehead forum which is a great resource.

Hi - allow me to introduce myself... A year ago, just to do something different, I started teaching myself electronics by building some Bottlehead tube amp kits. Of course, I needed sensitive speakers to go with these kits so I picked up a pair of SB-2s that were on sale locally. These mated quite well to my Bottlehead Foreplay and Paramours. 4 months ago I bought a pair of Heresys (or Heresies?). There were OK - until I updated the crossovers with BEC autotransformers, Audiocaps and Erse inductors. After about 100 hours of play time these speakers really began to sing everything except bass. But I knew they would be light on bass when I bought them. A month ago I located a pair of Cornwalls for sale in Northern Vermont (Hi Charles!) and picked them up last week. At the same time I hooked them up to my system I also upgraded the 2a3 power tubes in my amps - new power tubes take about 30 hours to break-in and typically sound bad until they do. Thursday I noticed that the bass portions of the music were coming thru quite nicely. Yesterday everything else started appearing. Bells chimed, cymbals crashed instead of thunked, brushes sounded like brushes instead of static, and the bass is tight and defined. These speakers are it! And did I mention that the attenuator on my pre-amp has 11 volume positions and we have yet to turn it past position 5 because at that point you can't hear yourself think. Pretty cool for a 3 watt amp. Anyhow, just thought I'd say, "Hi!" TonyB

Listed in the electronics sections of today's Boston Craigslist is a Klipsch Home Theater setup that includes a couple of Chorus IIs. I've emailed them to see if they'll consider selling these separately. Not really sure I'd want them now since I picking up a pair of Cornwalls on Sunday.