I just ran it up, and although it looks like it is out of the box pristine, it sounds like ass. Quite distorted, and when I turn the gain past a certain point it pops and becomes really distorted, and the compression drops right off by about 70%, and it stays that way even when I turn the volume back down. I guess it may have a bad cap or tube, I was wondering whether to buy it, but the only vari-mu I have ever had was an unmodified CBS Audimax II, which wasn't much use. (I did manage to swap it for a nice Studer A80 2 track machine though).
I would like to hear the Altec in it's full glory though, so I will open it up on Monday and see what is amiss. Has anyone tried one on vocals? Where do these things shine?