Dennis Had Inspire Amps

[FloridaBoy]

Originally Posted by Rosco65

Regardless of the capability of the OPT, I'm not convinced driving the snot out of the output tubes gives the best sound. I own a [15 watt opt] KT88HO and a PSE. In both cases I find my best sound is with tube combinations that give less power than I could get by going with the 5AR4/KT88 combination. In my system and to my ears I find my KT88HO sounds best with a 5U4/6V6GT combination and my PSE sounds best with KT77'. Neither combination was chosen to give more power.

My opinion is that if you need the extra power you get going from a 12wpc KT88 to a 17wpc KT88 amp you really need to step up to the PSE. That being said, the larger OPT's on the 17wpc amp may provide better bass response even at lower power, though there may be a tradeoff. I have not listened to a 17wpc amp so cannot offer my direct opinion.

There is a sweet spot with these amps. Mine has the 20 watt transformers but is triode wired. *I* prefer 6L6GA's, Pope 6V6's and the GL KT77's. I wonder if it could be modded to switch between SE and triode?

I'm have these speakers: http://www.theabsolutesound.com/arti...ii-loudspeaker I'm not sure what the real world specs are but they are fine with the Inspire. They need the right capacitors, like PIO and some normal speaker wire and IC's. Like the WE wire on Jeff Day's blog. Sometimes what is old is new.