Devore O/96 with Class A Solid State Amps

This is a great reminder that we not adopt a narrow minded perspective with respect to putting together a system.  I spent most of my audio years in pursuit of achieving my goals with low efficiency dipole speakers and the requisite high current amps, having made up my mind that a speaker in a box couldn't possibly sound like anything but a speaker in a box.  A $2500 experiment on a pair of Coincident Triumph Extreme II's elicited a swift metanoia and now I have two systems using the high efficiency speaker low power SET approach. I most certainly don't expect to own another panel speaker, but I must admit that on occasion the 30.8 or perhaps a First Watt J-2 calls to me, just to satisfy my curiosity.  I spent last night listening to Brahms violin and viola sonatas, and it was pure bliss.  But on occasion, I have to revisit the Ring or Mahler, and I wonder if a really nice 30 W SS amp might not be interesting to have in the bull pen. 

Bayreuth, I suspected the 30.8 would have the edge over the J2.  It seams like there are always used J2's to be had, which I presume are mostly trade in's for the Pass amps. Charles, thanks for the heads up on Snoblo's experience.  It is going to be awhile before I buy any more gear.  I'm just starting to delve into the world of room treatments, and I am going to be taking my time on this project and getting the room right.  This stuff isn't exactly cheap.  I expect this will be a year long process, possibly more.  I have been doing a lot of listening lately, after a whole year of doing well to get an hour a week in.   Its funny, I'm like a kid in a toy store right next to a candy shop.  There is just so much I want to do.  I wish every day was 48 hours and every week had 14 days.   Life is good! 

Charles,  The pictures are old.  I have the woofers facing outward and that is the preferred orientation.  The speakers are moved back from the listening position and now the rear ports are 18" out from the front wall.  Israel lists that as the minimum acceptable distance from the wall.  Moving the speakers closer to the wall than what you see in the picture really helped in this case.   I have also changed some of the room furnishings, and undoubtedly, the room looks better with long wall orientation than it will look with short wall.  I also have all of my dedicated circuits on the long wall, because the electrician couldn't add anything to the outside short wall without tearing out the drywall.  That means if I use short wall orientation I am probably going to need some long speaker cables, which I'm not crazy about, but you do what you have to do.  As far as going off topic, its not like that hasn't happened with us before.   Good thing we aren't next door neighbors.  Neither one of us would get anything done!

jbrrp, I am thinking about building my own diffusors, but I will probably purchase the bass traps and other absorbers.  I have placed an order for Realtrap corner mondo traps, but they haven't arrived yet.   I have found their website and a couple conversations with Ethan Winer to be most helpful in getting started.
Charles, the TE II's are in my downstairs system.  The SV II's stay upstairs in my main rig.  My bonus room presents some problems with full range speakers like the SVs, that don't manifest themselves with the TE's.  I have been able to improve things substantially by moving the SV's closer to the front wall.  Until I did that, the whole room was buzzing from about 50-120 Hz.  Moving the speakers pretty much eliminated the room buzzing, but I am still faced with major non linearity below 300 Hz due to room nodes, back wall cancelation, etc.  The traps should help with that, and we will go from there.  Also, Ethan encouraged me to try again using a more standard short wall placement, which I initially rejected due to utterly unacceptable room nodes.   If I can manage to make that work with the traps in place, that would allow me to have the listening position out from the rear wall.  I suspect that once I get the room issues addressed, I'm going to find the SV's all I hoped they would be, and they will be as dear to me as the TEs are.  This is the first time in my life I have ever owned a speaker with much of anything to offer below 40 Hz, so I am still learning how to make them work in my listening room.
Dan,  indeed this retirement thing is a great gig!  My time to listen is between 4PM and 10PM, at which point I usually turn into a corpse.  My room is above the MBr, so I won't be doing any early morning listening with my late rising wife in the room below.  I listen while my wife is making dinner or whatever, and she occasionally joins me upstairs for a listen.   I don't listen on days I hike, so that leaves me with 3-4 days a week where I can get some good listening sessions in.  Generally speaking, when I don't listen, it is because I am doing something I really enjoy, not because I have some mundane or annoying distraction to attend to.  

Charles, assuming I get anywhere with this project, I will post some comments on my system page.  I don't have an ideal room, but it isn't all that bad, and it is dedicated to music and out of sight of visitors.  So I have a bit more latitude to use treatments.  Still, the room aesthetic is important to me.  You, Schubert and I have discussed this previously. Glorious sound in a room that looks like a dump is not really going to get it done.  Speaking of Schubert, anyone heard from him lately?