I had a really good night with the First Watt M2 + Inspire LP-2 + Zu Omens last night. Between Lucinda's new one (hard to get those discs out of the player...), Emmylou's "Wrecking Ball" and a couple of Steve Earle ("Jerusalem" and "Washington Street Serenade") things were sounding grand. It could have been the fine Bohemian Pilseners I was quaffing, but the soundstage was wide & deep and everything was sounding 'right' to my ears.
Ever subject to the upgrade bug, I have a First Watt J2 on the way to see if the higher gain from that amp suits my system even better. If not, back it goes - no harm, no foul. The J2 gets rave reviews with its JFETs (vs. the MosFETs for the M2) so I'm excited to audition it.
Peter - out of curiosity, what is your source component? I'm still perplexed how the higher the output voltage, the worse the overload sounded with the Inspire amp+preamp all tube system. e.g. a Resolution CD-55 with it's 3.5v output sounded horrid, a 3.0v Cary CDP sounded pretty bad, but my humble 2.0v Rotel RCD-1072 sounds the best of all. I was never able to engage Dennis on this dynamic and see if he could replicate it in NC.
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