Dennis Had Inspire Amps

[Rosco65]

Thanks Simon - I recall now. Those are Compactron tubes. I believe Dennis offers a revision to the LP-2 (LP-3) that replaces them with 6SN7/6SL7) tubes.

Had you considered replacing the preamp coupling caps with a single Jupiter Copper?

[Simonatsea]

Originally Posted by Rosco65

Thanks Simon - I recall now. Those are Compactron tubes. I believe Dennis offers a revision to the LP-2 (LP-3) that replaces them with 6SN7/6SL7) tubes.

Had you considered replacing the preamp coupling caps with a single Jupiter Copper?

If I did it all over again, I think the Jupitor Copper foil would have been the right choice. Next up in the power amp, the current coupling caps are Auricaps .001uf, Since they are such a small value I am looking at Duelund RS or the new Silver bypass caps or Vcaps CUTFT

I am finished buying caps for the LP-2.... still have lots of rolling I can do there wih the existing stock....

[BearCityUSA]

Originally Posted by Rosco65

Thanks Simon - I recall now. Those are Compactron tubes. I believe Dennis offers a revision to the LP-2 (LP-3) that replaces them with 6SN7/6SL7) tubes. Had you considered replacing the preamp coupling caps with a single Jupiter Copper?

The lp-3a conversion is a circuit change only, not a chassis change. Since the lp-2 uses 9 pin tubes the conversion also uses 9 pin tubes, specifically 6dj8 type and/or 6cg7 interchangeably. Changing to 6n_7 would require a complete teardown of the chassis to install octal sockets. Not worth the labor. Better to get a new one which DH builds with 6s_7 tubes, octal tubes. FWIW.

[FloridaBoy]

Originally Posted by Simonatsea

If I did it all over again, I think the Jupitor Copper foil would have been the right choice. Next up in the power amp, the current coupling caps are Auricaps .001uf, Since they are such a small value I am looking at Duelund RS or the new Silver bypass caps or Vcaps CUTFT

I am finished buying caps for the LP-2.... still have lots of rolling I can do there wih the existing stock....

.001uf? that is a really small value. Let us know which cap you decide to go with.

[FloridaBoy]

I read about this on Jeff Day's blog "Jeff's Place". I got the 8402 IC's assembled from Best-Tronics Manufacturing in Chicago and have been using them for a couple of weeks. $120 for 2 one meter pairs shipped. My ears agree with Jeff's opinion. I just hooked up the WE 14ga wire to my speakers. It needs to settle in but I can tell it's not going anywhere. The 16ga is no longer available.

Dueland now has a similar 14ga wire that is $9.95 a meter from Parts Connexion. It is supposed to be better that the WE that I paid $2 a foot for. If I did not have the WE I'd have gone for the Dueland. Oh, the wire is not manufactured by WE but made to their specs, which are not hi-tech, by a wire company in Rhode Island. It's simply 26 strands of tinned copper wire.

Wire does make a difference but price and performance are not always directly proportional. If you are thinking about cables check out the blog. YMMV.

[Rosco65]

Originally Posted by FloridaBoy

I read about this on Jeff Day's blog "Jeff's Place". I got the 8402 IC's assembled from Best-Tronics Manufacturing in Chicago and have been using them for a couple of weeks. $120 for 2 one meter pairs shipped. My ears agree with Jeff's opinion. I just hooked up the WE 14ga wire to my speakers. It needs to settle in but I can tell it's not going anywhere. The 16ga is no longer available.

Dueland now has a similar 14ga wire that is $9.95 a meter from Parts Connexion. It is supposed to be better that the WE that I paid $2 a foot for. If I did not have the WE I'd have gone for the Dueland. Oh, the wire is not manufactured by WE but made to their specs, which are not hi-tech, by a wire company in Rhode Island. It's simply 26 strands of tinned copper wire.

Wire does make a difference but price and performance are not always directly proportional. If you are thinking about cables check out the blog. YMMV.

Along similar lines, Omega Loudspeakers has long used Supra stranded cable for internal wiring. This is - you guessed it - tin-plated copper stranded wire in a PE sheath. The 15ga runs about a dollar a foot from Madisound. It would appear that there is some real value in the tin-plated copper wire.

[FloridaBoy]

Originally Posted by Rosco65

Along similar lines, Omega Loudspeakers has long used Supra stranded cable for internal wiring. This is - you guessed it - tin-plated copper stranded wire in a PE sheath. The 15ga runs about a dollar a foot from Madisound. It would appear that there is some real value in the tin-plated copper wire.

PHY-HP, the French single driver manufacturer, uses tin plated copper wire for speaker cable and IC's.

I was just going to mention the Supra. I remembered your post but forgot the name of the wire. Hey, it's a buck a foot. The WE is really nothing special construction wise. Tinned copper appliance wire.

[Rosco65]

I bought some of the same stuff - WE 14ga off Ebay. I got caught up in Jeff's enthusiasm as well. 50 ft is not that bad. Makes a couple sets of cables.

I think many of us in this hobby have gotten caught up in what is "best" based on theory or expense. It really began in earnest in the 1980's (remember CD Stoplight?) and kept going since. It may very well turn out that boutique parts and esoteric materials (and speaker cables the size of garden hose) not only don't make things sound better they may actually sound worse.

A lot of the materials and techniques of the Golden Age and thousands of engineers and billions of dollars behind them. Things were chosen because they performed better and/or lasted longer, not because they could be sold as audio jewelry. If we look at the way a vintage McIntosh or Marantz (or Citation or Brook) amp was wired it may seem prosaic compared to today's megabuck amps, but as Jeff Day discovered, straying from the old components actually made things worse. I remember reading about the parts choices in my Superphon Revelation Preamp: Stan Warren had to hit a price point but also needed to make it sound great. He bought tons of a very cheap potentiometer and selected for linearity and matched sections. It significantly outperformed the fashionable Alps Blue Velvet in this particular application. It turns out that the combination of cheap parts worked for his design.

[Simonatsea]

Originally Posted by FloridaBoy

.001uf? that is a really small value. Let us know which cap you decide to go with.

Sorry, .01uf.... still small though....

[Bombadil]

Originally Posted by Rosco65

Along similar lines, Omega Loudspeakers has long used Supra stranded cable for internal wiring. This is - you guessed it - tin-plated copper stranded wire in a PE sheath. The 15ga runs about a dollar a foot from Madisound. It would appear that there is some real value in the tin-plated copper wire.

Madisound also sells Supra's 13ga tin-plated speaker cable for $1.68/ft. Supra Classic-2.5 speaker wire.

Supra Classic-4.0, 11ga, for $2.59/ft.
Supra Classic-6.0, 9ga, for $3.66/ft.