Until a few years ago, I had a mostly tube system based on a Dynaco PAS pre-amp and VTL compact 100 monoblocks feeding into a pair of Dahlquist DQ-20i mains.

Unfortunately, the "fire bottle" amps were just too much of an attractive nuissance for my toddlers (lots of heat + lots of high voltage + occasional power tube flame out = annoyed wife). So I went through a series of "mid-fi" Sony ES gear with an outboard Adcom GFA-5802 amp. A few months ago, I just decided life was too short to spend it using cheesy equipment and mediocre sound so I put together the system you see below. I went with an Outlaw amp/pre-amp as buying more Adcom GFA-5802s + Lexicon processor seemed both expensive and overkill for my child-filled environment.

So back to vintage....I'd love to find a way to continue using the Dahlquists, but I think the woofers are just tired (had them reconed a few years ago, but I think the motors are just too long in the tooth to do the kind of bass that I like without bottoming out). If I could find a source for a suitable replacement woofer, I'd probably set up a separate listening area for 2-channel audio, get some VTL Wotan monoblocks and enjoy my new space heaters. 8-)

One of these days I've got to dig the Dynaco gear out of the attic....I have to say though...I don't really miss the days when I'd have to spend a couple hours a month re-biasing the output tubes on all my amps. 8-)

Cheers,