For my cottage system, I have been running Betsys with a thrift store 15" woofer and a plate amp. I don't have much room at the cottage so I was looking to ditch the plate amp.
I have always liked the bass sound of the Emminence 15as so I consulted Randy at Caintuck Audio
http://www.caintuckaudio.comRandy was kind enough to share indicator values for various cross-over points. Armed with this information, I burned through an Amazon gift card and picked up some 15as and a couple inductors for crossing at 125Hz.
The bolt pattern n the Alphas was exactly the same as the thrift store 15s so no fiddling there. Changeover and adding the inductors took less than 20 minutes.
Overall, a significant upgrade in the bass department and I didn't feel the need for a plate amp at all. 15as produce a very nice musical bass, but I was also impressed with how punchy they were.
Randy offers speakers with some 10" and 12" alphas which he feels are faster. From what I remember, from Decfest they sound quite nice.
Yes, the Augies in my main baffles offer more grunt, but you have to power them with SS amplification. These 15as produce a very nice bass experience for about a third of the cost and no additional plate amp expense either.