For now the Leben CS600, but my hope is acquire a Cortese.
However, just yesterday I bought a pair of Flamencos in excellent condition! Very excited putting this through it's paces. For now, I have the same two speakers as Art Dudley which is great because he's written to much about both of them.
The first thing I noticed coming from the O96 is that the Altecs sound much much better at low volumes. For a young father of two small children this is great!
The next thing that popped into my mind was how Art mentioned that older speakers had more 'flesh and bone' than newer. I don't know if the sonic undertone to that statement is simply 'more bass', but I do think that the Altecs do bass more believably and with more kick/snap than my DeVores. The DeVore's base by comparison is more detailed. I can see how one could have a preference for either.
Anyways, I know OP already bought Flamencos but for anyone else reading the thread I thought I would post something Art wrote about in discussing his Altecs and O96
From Stereophile:
"These days, when my attention isn't required by loudspeakers in for review, I divide my listening time between the DeVore O/96s and my nearly 50-year-old Altec Valencias. The Altec and DeVore share a few traits. Both are more efficient (footnote 2) than average, notably fine at playing music with a believable sense of scale, and both have larger-than-average bass drivers for two-way loudspeakers: 13" for the Altec, 10" for the DeVore. Otherwise, they're different sides of a rarely traded coin. The Altec is all about touch, texture, impact, presence, and directness, yet it funds some of those accomplishments with sacrifices in tonal neutrality—at its worst, the Valencia can be slightly shrieky. The DeVore doesn't have quite the same texture and touch—though it's better than average in those departments—and embodies much that is good about more decidedly modern hi-fi, including notably wide bandwidth and a sophisticated way with the spatial characteristics of good stereo recordings. The O/96 also manages the neat trick of sounding simultaneously substantial and open—but never overtly "airy.""
Read more at
http://www.stereophile.com/content/d...igYg3W00VKt.99