thought this would be a good thread for my first post. my father was the head recording engineer for RCA in Chicago in the early 70s. he would take me to the studios at night when he had unfinished work. i used to play around with instruments left in the studios, mostly drums, with kettles being my favorite to pound on. the coolest thing i remember was the lathe room, where he would cut albums to take home to my older sister. sadly, she has given all of them away years ago.. artists like chicago, alice cooper and the guess who. ebay would have loved those one of a kind vinyls. what does that have to do with the speakers i am replacing? well, JBLs were all they had in the RCA studios at that time and my father always told me those were the ones to get when i got older and started buying my own equipment. i remember enjoying their sound in the studios. he would cue up some music off the tascam reels and give me a soldering iron with some wire to create things. my first real job at the age of 16 was used to save up for my first speakers & electronics. i bought a technics integrated, turntable and a pair of JBL L19s. i have had the L19s ever since. they are 36 years old and i still love the way they sound, especially in the mid and high freq.. a lot of non-audiophiles have told me my current stereo with an EAD Sig-8, parasound hca-855 amp and oppo 83SE is by far the best they have ever heard. i know better, but the JBLs still sound smooth and sweet. its time to see what a modern speaker design sounds like, so after much reading, and a little listening (B&W, PSB and Maggies) i have ended up here with an order for a pair of SongTowers. I hope Jim and all his forum followers are not all talk. i wont like something just because i researched it and bought it... so it must be the greatest deal in speaker-dom. nevertheless, i have a great feeling about those boxes that will be heading my way in a few weeks.