One of the many plus factors about working from home is you can have the sweetest sounds throughout the day. Without the accompanied hearing loss of listening to Senns or Grados all day in an office.

Some Tannoy active monitors (Reveal 5a’s) graced my desk for the past year or so. Up until a crackle emanated from one of the tweeters on Friday, followed shortly with that ‘I just got a little poorer’ sensation as the sound stage disappeared from the left hand side as the tweeter blinked out.

The associated cost of fixing it may not be worth the effort. Grieving period now over - they are wonderfully detailed, perhaps a little too ‘clinical’ though which is by design but I have certainly had countless hours of fantastic music. After a little digging I figure some one else probably has had one die in a similar manner - so assuming I can get enough for them on Ebay I’m going to try something different.

(photo credit)

Rather than risk a mission to Bay Bloor Radio and the accompanying questions I turned to Google and found these puppies from OrbAudio. Handmade in the States vs shipped out from China. They look pretty damned cool, and unlike most cool looking, handmade products are reasonably priced and seem to get rave reviews. So. The next question, planning what the heck I could drive them with - the Tannoys had integrated amps on each speaker, so now I need to find an amp. I like the notion of trying out a valve amp but can safely say I have no idea what I’m looking for !

Does anyone have any recommendations for good, cheap, stereo valve amp that would suit. I don’t need to have hearing loss, despite my Tannoy’s abilities to wake up the neighbours, I’d really prefer a rich warm soundstage at low volumes than trying to crank Tool out until I’m deaf

Anyone with 2cents to share ?