Well, the Dittons arrived today, professionally packaged to within an inch of their lives, in the same 'showroom' condition as I saw them in the pictures.... My GOD these things are as MINTY MINT as MINTY MINT ever gets - they look absolutely gorgeous!!

But the best bit came when I fired them up on the end of my system..... Oh, f*ck me sideways with a big fat bargepole, these are laughably good!!!

This has got to be up there with one of the best £260 I've ever spent on hi-fi. Even just sat on the floor at the moment until I get suitable stands, they sound amazing for little stand-mount speakers. They have a massive sound for their size which is, big-boned, punchy, dynamic, crystal clear, musically expressive and just huge FUN!!

You can hear the pedigree and that these are extremely well-sorted high-quality designs from an era when loudspeakers were built properly by companies using their own cabinets, crossovers and top-notch drive units - and rather crucially, voiced by ear, not bloody computers. They are also voiced to sound real, and not like the horrid shouty sounding monstrosities so often sold these days at the budget end of the market.

Sound and build quality-wise I wouldn't hesitate to put them in the £800-1000 price bracket, no problem whatsoever, so at £260 they are an umitigated undisputable bargain.

In fact they're *so* good, once I've got some stands, I doubt I'll bother doing anything else to them.... It just goes to show how much pish is talked about on forums and elsewhere about these speakers and other vintage designs like them - all they need is some decent kit upstream and they positively sing, so it's just as I suspected, folks: don't blame the speakers, blame some of the equipment they were partnered with in those days!

Moi is a very happy bunny.... God bless Ebay!

Marco.