Hey Tom,
Thanks for the reply. On the one hand, yeah, having mirror image monoblocks does have a certain coolness factor. But your amps are more or less symmetric already, and as you point out, you'd have to undo some work you've already done. And then there's the question of do you really want to have to figure out how to do the wiring symmetrically too? That could open the door to wiring errors, and at the very least, prevent you from doing the second amp faster than you did the first one. But I guess it depends on how visible your amps are. Mine is currently not all that visible, and when I get the W-5Ms, at least one will be mostly out of sight, so I'm certainly not going to worry about symmetry. And from the front, with the tube cage on, they are perfectly symmetrical anyway.
As for piecing together used stuff, haha, welcome to my life! I have more or less stopped buying new consumer durables. I don't know about your area, but here in Boston there's a surfeit of rich people who wake up and say to themselves, "I just need to get 'X' out of the house," and then they put it on Craigslist for a song. I recently bought a weight bench with 2 barbells, 2 dumbbells, and about 500 lbs of weight discs for $30 from some guy who was just tired of having them in the basement. And I recently scored a sit-up bench for $15. And while my W-5Ms weren't a steal, they weren't all that expensive either, and with some work and a couple hundred dollars in parts, I hope to have something truly excellent. So yeah, frugality is the way to go. Not to mention it's WAY more environmentally friendly, since you don't end up with a cubic yard of Styrofoam every time you buy something.
It's interesting what you have to say about Amazon music. I'm kind of old-school (58 y/o), so I like to own CDs, and to a lesser degree, records. But I also have a bunch of SACDs and I can really hear the difference compared to CDs. So I have wondered about doing the whole FLAC/DAC streaming thing, but have yet to take the plunge. I have a good friend who doesn't care about audio, but she likes music and has Pandora and/or Spotify. But the problem, IMHO, with those services is that they're sort of like a top 40 station in that they play music that you're supposed to like based on your first selection (which they mostly get right). But then they play the same thing over and over and over to the point it gets tired. I can't tell you how many times I've heard The Four Seasons in her house.
Anyway, thanks for the nice reply. I am eager to get the amplifiers, and wondering if it's too soon to start a thread on them.
Cheers,
Kim G
Boston, MA
Where grocery stores will no longer let you bring your own bags.
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