Dennis Had Inspire Amps

[Bombadil]

I now have my primary system set up in my new apartment. Spent time yesterday and this morning tweaking my speaker placement. I'm sure that will continue for a while.

As I noted earlier my Von Schweikert tower speakers have great bass definition, some find them lean sounding as they do not have the common mid-bass emphasis found in many speakers. They are very flat down to around 32Hz and still have good output down into the mid-20s.

I listened to my Inspire KT88 HO (the 17 wpc edition) for about two hours running my KT88 tubes, and then tonight for about an hour on a new set of KT120s, obviously not broken in. I must say that I was quite impressed by both sets of tubes. Very nice, natural midrange & imagining, with solid, deep bass. Maybe not as tight as with a good SS amp, but close and very involving.

Very much looking forward to tuning my new setup and then rolling more of my power tubes, rectifiers, and 6SN7s. And comparing all of these to my triode tube amp, driving two 6CA7 tubes per channel to about the same power output (18 wpc). It has Audio Note output transformers and produces a very sweet sound.

Lots of fun ahead.

[Simonatsea]

Originally Posted by nhparrot

Since I bought my Inspire amp, I have spent more on tubes then I spent on the amp. Thought I was done then just yesterday bought a USAF 596 rectifier and a socket adapter. Yes I am a tube-aholic.

By far my favorite rectifier, I have been very tempted to buy a second one to run into my LP-2.... There are some good deals lately on the auction site...

All quiet on my end, esspecially after I changed the Zenar Diodes in my LP2. Dennis was kind enough to send me a few as I have always had a slight hiss to my LP2.

Also I removed the 2nd bypass cap from my LP-2, just the Auydin Copper Max 1.5uf and the Jupiter copper foil .22uf inplace. I can now count the individual instuments in the strings section! Really quite extrotinary.

I have contacted dennis regarding rolling my .022uf Rel Audiocap Teflon in place of the .01uf Auricap in my 6V6 amp. He said it would be no problem at all. Stay tuned!

[x3workshop]

After I made one big bulk buy/score 18 months ago and with what I pulled from my dad's estate, I now have enough tubes to last my lifetime and my son's lifetime - even with 4 guitar amps and 14 audio amps + the LP-27a.

All of the tubes I have left range from excellent to very good. (I gave away tons of good tubes to friends.) I'll cherry pick the creme de la creme and will begin to sell off the remaining tubes or trade for better examples to suit my needs. Don't need more. Same goes for the tube gear.

My version of the 12 step program.

[nhparrot]

Originally Posted by Simonatsea

By far my favorite rectifier, I have been very tempted to buy a second one to run into my LP-2.... There are some good deals lately on the auction site...

Bought it on your recommendation. It arrived today, just waiting on my socket adapters to arrive to give it a test drive. Even better deals when someone on that auction site accepts best offer.

[Bombadil]

Just conducted another 6SN7 Shoot-out! After rounding up all of my tube boxes and the bag of tubes I purchased during my recent trip to Florida, I found that I had 14 of them. I had to toss two for being too noisy.

Amp: Inspire SE KT88 HO 17 wpc edition
Speakers: Von Schweikert towers, a special edition mod by the designer.

Compared 14 6SN7 tubes, from 10 different brands. 13 of the tubes were old-stock, one was the new re-issue Tung-Sol. The Tung-Sol had only around 12 hours on it, so perhaps it isn't at its best yet, but in my experience tubes don't change that much after about 8 hours of use. Others say more.

The winners were my two Westinghouse 6SN7GTB tall black-plate with yellow labels. These were manufactured by Westinghouse, they are not relabels. Prices for these vary a lot, you can find them for $15, others sell them for $50. They produce a beautiful natural sound. I swapped them in and out of my amp several times, to compare against others which sounded good. Every time I put one of them in and turned on the music, I would get the sensation of the hair on my arms standing up. Vocals are fantastic. Good detail and definition, maybe not quite the very best on deep bass definition, but good. It was hard to pull them and go onto the next tube because I was so drawn into the music.

Just behind them were three other tubes: RCA clear top black plates, Silvertone side getter (made by RCA?) , and a very old Crosley black plate, which I believe was manufactured by Sylvania, it's a top getter with silvering at the top, but not so bright and shiny as the classic Sylvania Chrome Dome.

I did not expect these 5 to end up at the top.

Others which were pretty close to the three above were Sylvania bottom getter, Sylvania chrome dome, an old Ken-Rad, Motorola side-getter. These all sounded good, had very low noise, good detail. Just a shade back on imaging and naturalness.

I've got far more of these than I need, but I'm now thinking of selling off the bottom half and maybe picking up a couple more of the Westinghouse.

Oh, almost forgot about the new, reissue Tung-Sol. To my chagrin, it finished in last. I'm going to keep it around and put some more hours on it to see if it improves. I listened to it three times during the shoot-out and each time the sound was just flatter and a bit more compressed. Technically it had good resolution and detail, but was much less involving.

[Bombadil]

Here is an image of the Westinghouse 6SN7GTB with its tall black plates, copper rods, and round top getter. I've been doing a bit of research on them, as I really have not given them much notice in my tube box. They are a unique design, unlike any other 6SN7. They also made some with gray plates, I haven't heard one of those.

I got in contact with a couple of tube gurus, guys who have been building amps & tube gear for 40-50 years and who have shelves full of tubes. They both told me that they like this tube, that it is an underrated / below the radar 6SN7. One of them had several in his stock and agreed to sell me 2 with matched sections and strong readings.

I haven't had any opportunity to compare it against the new CV181, the Pope 6SN7 or the Sylvania 6SN7W. So I don't know if stands up well against these. But as it can still be purchased in the neighborhood of $10-$15, it certainly provides a lot of bang for the buck.

Here's a link to a photo: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TQd7ZZOd8r...stinghouse.jpg

[nhparrot]

Originally Posted by Bombadil

Just conducted another 6SN7 Shoot-out! ...

In my tube caddy, for the 6SN7 type, I have a Ken-Rad JAN-CKR-6SN7GT VT-231, an Admiral branded Sylvania 6SN7GT, a Raytheon JAN-CRP-6SN7GT VT-231, a RCA JAN CRC 6SN7G, and a RCA 6SN7GT VT-231.

Out of all of them the Raytheon JAN-CRP-6SN7GT VT-231 is my favorite of the bunch.

[Musica Amantem]

Originally Posted by nhparrot

In my tube caddy, for the 6SN7 type, I have a Ken-Rad JAN-CKR-6SN7GT VT-231, an Admiral branded Sylvania 6SN7GT, a Raytheon JAN-CRP-6SN7GT VT-231, a RCA JAN CRC 6SN7G, and a RCA 6SN7GT VT-231.

Out of all of them the Raytheon JAN-CRP-6SN7GT VT-231 is my favorite of the bunch.

In my case, these are the input tubes I have and tried already (a couple more have not been tried yet):

NOS RCA 6SN7 GT
NOS Sylvania 6SN7 G/B
NOS Sylvania 6SN7 GTA
NOS Super Radiotron 6SN7 GTA
New prod. Tung-Sol 6SL7 GT
NOS Sylvania 6SL7 GT
NOS Phillips JAN 6SL7 WGT
NOS Tung-Sol 6SL7 GT
NOS JAN Phillips 5691

My absolute favorite is the Super Radiotron 6SN7 GTA. Waiting for a CV-181 to check what's all the fuss about

[nhparrot]

Originally Posted by Musica Amantem

My absolute favorite is the Super Radiotron 6SN7 GTA.

Is that an AWV Austrailian manufactured tube?

[Musica Amantem]

Originally Posted by nhparrot

Is that an AWV Austrailian manufactured tube?

Amalgamated Wireless Valve (AWV), 1960 (Australia).