edited to delete duplicate, didn’t look like work computer was working. See below.

Yea y’all. This wife ordered stay at home situation I find myself in is one which would be much worse without the new Inspire 6V6er Dennis so graciously sent to me a few weeks back. Have been enjoying it immensely. Another winner of a design from Dennis’s stable. Not sure how to compare it with my other amps (PSE(p) and now much modified KT ->Universal w/IIPS). First impression was literally WOW! but have not had much time for serious listening as the family is now home ALL THE TIME. I have been bi-amping my Proac DT8s, with the PSE on low pass and 6V6er on hi, a lot. What a beautiful presentation. Hours and hours of just plain bliss.

Funny, Governor Cooper (NC) is making my wife’s order official state wide as we speak. Said wife shut off the [emoji344][emoji443] to watch his address live.

Stay Safe and Healthy,
From the mountains of WNC

Don’t think my previous reply went through, but ....

First and foremost, as usual listen to the wife. I’m on the medical side of this little Covid thing. Best thing we can do for each other is stay away from each other and help this thing burn out as quickly as possible. Perfect time to wax poetic about tube rolling, “old fashioned” amps, and our favorite speakers (anybody have any significant time with Devore or Volti Rival speakers?).

Don't think you ever posted pics of the gas regulated preamp! Way cool. I remember seeing the pentode amp 2-3 years ago when Analog was first talking about the amp idea. Those metal RCA 6F6 look awfully neat, prefer those to other 6V6 variants? Just got a quad of Sylvania 6L6GAY JAN, haven’t had a chance to play with them yet in the SEP PSE.

Thanks for answering the questions. Two follow ups:
1: how do you get away with switching between the 6sn7 and 6sl7 families? Does the amp adjust similar to the way they auto bias different output tubes?
2: certainly not a tube amp wizard but think I understand the basics. With the IIPS my understanding was the zenner diodes did the ac to dc conversion and the rectifier tube followed and help filter out noise from going down stream. With the 45 PSE is the rectifier doing the ac to dc and then gas regulators cleaning/stabilizing to downstream dc? And if so, how much effect does “rolling” rectifiers make with those multiple gas regulated stages?

Hey PSE45
Happy wife, happy life!
The input circuit is designed to work with either tube.
The difference between the 6SN7 and the 6SL7 is that you have more gain with the 6SL7, but which one you like is a matter of personal preference.
You are correct in your understanding of the IIPS circuit, it is diode rectified and the rectifier tube "decouples" or "filters" the B+ from the diodes because of the absence of a physical connection in the vacuum of the rectifier tube.
With the 45PSE the Gas voltage regulation is used only on the plates of the input tube.
I am not sure which rectifier Dennis recommends for the 45PSE.

Hey bearcity

Glad to hear you're happy with your new amp!
Just got in some more inner sleeves, so I've been catching up on my record cleaning and alphabetizing.
For the 6F6 fans These Russian 6F6's are very nice for the price.

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/9Gza3cu.jpg[/IMG]

Yes, I own one of Dennis's HO Triode strapped pentode amps. A very good amp, but the 45 PSE is in another league.

I figured as much, pretty much the general impressions you hear from 45 amps. That seems to be a ridiculously good tube for audio. The gas regulated design is wild, looks amazing!

I was looking at 845 amps recently, purely for power output, pentodes can push the same watts if you stack them, but if you want the DHT sound pretty much 845 seems to be the road one goes down (or 211 whatever), for higher watts. Unfortunately you can't find a good one for under $5k (at least I can't) and usually quite a bit more than that.

My dream speakers are Omega "Super Alnico High Output XRS" tower pair. Decently well priced @ $4.7k, for the performance they deliver. I just have a feeling a 45 amp wouldn't be able to flesh out the dynamics I would want out of them. Only reason I haven't bought the towers yet is I've been looking forever for a tube amp that could drive them (thinking between 16-25wpc).

They're 97/dB@1m (probably more like 94dB@1m, can never rly trust the manufacturer on those specs). Maybe I'm wrong, but I think a 100dB/@1m plus would be the way to go for under 10wpc. If I'm not mistaken, the 45PSE puts out somewhere below 10wpc?

Dennis has those 20wpc 4x kt88 amps, I think he's posted two so far in the last year. Really good price, but I really want to try the DHT sound everybody raves about.

In the meantime I've been extremely happy with the pentode headamp I commissioned from Dennis (straitwire built it and posted some pictures of it awhile ago). It's one of the few headamps that actually pushes some damn good dynamics with my 300ohm headphones.

Being cooped up in the house has me thinking too much about audio upgrades -_-

5AW4 rectifier
 

Has anyone here tried a 5AW4 rectifier in their LP3.1, Universal or triode Strapped amp? They're pretty cheap and readily available.

Looks like it runs at 3.7amps: https://www.amplifiedparts.com/sites...files/5aw4.pdf

Probably wouldn't be safe to run, since 5ar4 (gz34) are 2amp, and 5u4 are 3amps.

Hey Cdrdel and Comzee, yes you can use the 5AW4 in our preamps and amps...straitwire...:yes: