In brief, not worth the money unless you currently don't have adequate lighting or a magnifier.

I got my new Ott lamp today. The 18 watt Flex Arm Plus model with the 3x magnifier attachment. It was half priced at JoAnn's Fabrics, but still $165 with shipping. I had to buy it from their Net site as the local store doesn't stock them. Thus, I couldn't check it out in advance.

Previously I had been using a generic brand magnifying fluorescent lamp that cost about $60. The kind with a round head and a round magnifier in the middle surrounded by a circular fluorescent lamp. It was clamped onto a window sill with the spring loaded reticulating arm coming out over my computer monitor. When I needed the lamp out of the way for something, it was simple to just raise it up out of the way.

I tie at my home office desk, directly in front of my computer monitor. There's a long fluorescent lamp on the ceiling overhead and about a 20" high table lamp at about 2:00 to my right with a compact fluorescent bulb.

After a bit of experimenting I found that the best way to use the Ott was to set it up on my left at about 10:00. The base takes up a lot of desk space, being roughly 10" x 7".

You need about 2'8" of desk width to your left to get the lamp at the level you would really like, but I don't have that available on my corner desk. At the height that I can get with this limitation, I can still get enough light from the Ott to tie a fly. It is not as much light as I got with the generic magnifying lamp, but it is enough.

The Ott is supposed to let you see things in true color. I've experimented with a number of tying materials and colors. Using the Ott alone, and using it in all of the various permutations of the other two lights I have here. My eyes could see very little difference. Not enough to justify the cost of the lamp. This surprised me greatly at first, but it may be because I chose natural colored bulbs for both the fluorescent overhead and desk lamps --at no extra cost versus regular ones.

The optical quality of the Ott magnifier is noticeably better than the one in the generic magnifying lamp I was using. The downside is that the Ott's flexible arm is much more difficult to get in and out of position.

In net, even at half price I probably wasted my money on this lamp. I'm not saying it is a bad product. It appears to be well made. It just hasn't made a positive contribution to my tying situation. Your mileage may vary.