antique sound 1009

The list of tubed amplifiers better than the ASL 1009 or whatever its' morphed into under $10K is extensive. Be it SET, OTL, PP, etc. your choices include BAT, VAC, Atma-Sphere, Joule, Art Audio, CAT, Lamm, ARC,Thor, Quicksilver, Rogue and on and on. All of these offer superior build quality and higher reliability.

Remember the penny wise and dollar foolish adage.

Definetely agree with AudioFeil's comments.Buy from a reputable long established manufacturer,why spend your hard earned money on questionable chinese knock offs.

I had a pair and sold them for four reasons:

1)I discovered I don't want to bias

2)The thought of of dropping $2k on NOS 845's alone didn't appeal to me

3)Too much heat output for my application

4)Too heavy to move around

They were used on Merlin MX's and Vandy 5A's to good effect.

There appear to be some uninformed answers above.
I owned the 1009's for a while and they were quite impressive in my system. They are not knockoffs of anything. While the some of the amps listed above may have better fit and finish and a fancier chassis, most of them simply don't perform as well as the 1009. NOS 845's are completely unnecessary with this amp. I found however that substituting the EL34's for the Svetlana winged C offered a more even tonal balance in my system.
I have owned several of the amps listed above and the 1009 was the best of the bunch. (CAT and Lamm would be better choices but at several times the price of the ASL). The review of these amps on Salvatore's High-End Audio website is mostly accurate in my opinion.

Great amps. I regret selling them from time to time. It drove Avalon Diamonds and Quad ESL well. I did not have maintenance problem and they sounded great with Shuguang 845B and 845M. Very good texture and a lot of inner detail. It bettered Audio Research and Rogue amps that I had. I did not think they give up much comparing to Nagra VPA. I tried many tubes and ended up with Ei EL34 and Bugleboy 12AU7.