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Well I was shocked yet not shocked when I heard of Richard Betts death from cancer earlier today.  That guy was something else.  He played anything handed to him and his fretwork was amazing.  Quiet yet always came up with something funny if you knew that grin of his.     Ramblin Man?  He flat nailed it everytime I ever saw him play it.  It was just the way he rolled like the rest of the guys.  Southern rock?  The Allman Brothers were the words that rolled off so many tongues.  It's just another sad day.  Ugh     Forrest Richard Betts (December 12, 1943 – April 18, 2024) was an American guitarist, singer, songwriter and composer best known as a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band. Early in his career, he collaborated with Duane Allman,[1] introducing melodic twin guitar harmony and counterpoint which "rewrote the rules for how two rock guitarists can work together, completely scrapping the traditional rhythm/lead roles to stand toe to toe".[2] Following Allman's death in 1971, Betts assumed sole lead guitar duties during the peak of the group's commercial success in the mid-1970s. Betts was the writer and singer on the Allmans' hit single "Ramblin' Man". He also gained renown for composing instrumentals, with one appearing on most of the group's albums, including "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" and "Jessica" (which was later used as the theme to Top Gear). The band went through a hiatus in the late 1970s, during which time Betts, like many of the other band members, pursued a solo career and side projects under such names as Great Southern and The Dickey Betts Band. The Allman Brothers reformed in 1979, with Dan Toler taking the second guitar role alongside Betts. In 1982, they broke up a second time, during which time Betts formed the group Betts, Hall, Leavell and Trucks, which lasted until 1984. A third reformation occurred in 1989, with Warren Haynes now joining Betts on guitar. After Betts was ousted from the band in 2000 over a conflict regarding his continued drug and alcohol use; he never played with them again nor appeared with other former band members for reunions or side projects. With the death of Betts in April 2024, Jaimoe is the last living founder of the Allman Brothers Band. He was inducted with the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995[3] and also won a best rock performance Grammy Award with the band for "Jessica" in 1996.[4] Betts was ranked No. 58 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time list in 2003, and No. 61 on the list published in 2011.   His first solo lp from 1974 went down and cranked big time this afternoon.      Ya think he couldn't do it all?  Riiiiight, not a big hit but one of my favs.  Yea, the Brothers chimed in on that one just about every time they played Cleveland.       Here ya go  @JohnJ.  Put your feet up.      Here's the full lp.  The Brothers and "Ramblin Man?"  Check out his intro to the first song on this lp.      God's speed brother!  RIP!

What an amazing guitar player!

COOL! I want to hear your thoughts!

LMAO!!!

This conversation is inspiring me to do some critical Heresy IV listening between my Decware and Sansui 5000x. Great discussion!

"MAXIMUM of 116 dB continuous"   Me: "I use these when listening to music." Someone smarter than me: "Why don't you just turn it down?......a lot" Me: "I never thought of that."  

and has been around since '79...wow 45+ years

Thanks @geoff. and @Woofers and Tweeters for bringing up the maximum volume issue. I've been thinking about power needs at reasonable listening levels, but this does add another wrinkle, doesn't it? My Forte IIIs are rated at 99 dB/2.83V/1m (just looked this up so I'm correcting my earlier mistake), and have a MAXIMUM of 116 dB continuous. To achieve that maximum requires something a little shy of 64 watts. The specs also show maximum power ratings of 100/400 watts. I assume that means 100 continuous or 400 peak, so we're pretty much in that 2X range.   Personally, I have no interest in pushing my speakers to 116 dB, but I suppose in a huge room with a listening position pretty removed from the speakers, that might be somewhat reasonable. I take my measurements from my listening position and consider anything above 90 dB to be really, really loud, but it isn't painful and it sounds quite good. That is still probably below 1 watt of amplifier output.   I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm enjoying this discussion. I appreciate the participation.

If I follow your argument correctly, does this suggest that a good, solid, high-end amplifier with high current producing 8 watts should sound the same as a good, solid, high-end amplifier with high current producing 28 or 280 watts into an efficient Klipsch speaker at the same SPL? It makes sense to me that it would but, again, just my assumption.

That is a good question. I would think it should be equal as a function of the speaker crossover network design, but that is just an assumption.