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Inspire by Dennis Had Enjoying Vacuum Tube Audio

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  #4961  
Old 09-21-2018, 11:34 AM
FloridaBoy FloridaBoy is offline
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There it be.
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  #4962  
Old 09-21-2018, 11:41 AM
FloridaBoy FloridaBoy is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyson View Post
Well, thanks to this thread, I went ahead and bought a bunch more tubes, mostly Shuguand and Psvane. Once they all arrive, here's what I'll have:

Psvane - EL84 Ti, EL34PH (Holland replica), 6CA7 Tii (grey glass), KT88 Tii (Grey Glass), CV181 Tii (Grey Glass)
Shuguang Black Treasure - 6CA7, KT66, KT88, CV181
Gold Lion - EL84, KT66, KT77, KT88
Electro Harmonix - EL34
New Production Mullard - EL34
Svetlana - EL34
Penta Labs - KT88-SC
Sovtek - KT88
New Production Tung Sol - KT150

Floridaboy, I don't know how the Pentas compare to the Treasures. I bought them recently for a song (like $100 for a set of 5), so they're in the box not even burned in yet.

I have so many tubes, burning them all in is going to be a major undertaking! Hmmm, I wonder.... you know, maybe I can hook up my backup tube amp which uses 3 6SN7s and 4 EL34s and just use it to burn in some stuff in parallel to what I'm doing with the Inspire MB12s. I have some big 8ohm resistors I could hook up to it's output, that just might work. At least speed up some of this.
I just read your post in the Pass Labs forum:

I have a Burning Amp 3 which is the best I've heard of the First Watt amps. It's a very cool design, because it has a pot on the input board that lets you dial up (or down) the even order harmonic distortion. Turn it one way and it sounds like an F5 (hyper clean/clear) turn it the other way and it sounds like an Aleph (beautiful). I love mine. But honestly after I discovered high efficiency speakers and low watt tube amps, the BA3 mostly sits in storage.

What speakers are you driving?
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  #4963  
Old 09-21-2018, 11:55 AM
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Originally Posted by FloridaBoy View Post
I thought he had a headphone amp marketed by Moon Audio? I have no idea how it would fare in the Woo. There may be more info on HeadFi.
You are correct. Thanks for the info. Very appealing. Trying to decide if I need to go with a balanced amp or not. Definitely uses my tubes-of-choice and the Lundahl xformer option would be great.

Anyone here using one?

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Last edited by jdandy; 09-21-2018 at 12:22 PM. Reason: active links to retail audio websites against forum rules
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  #4964  
Old 09-21-2018, 12:27 PM
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The Dragon Inspire got a nice review in the Absolute Sound.

“Even within the limited range of $1500 to $2000 you will find almost every type of headphone amplifier, but none offers quite the same combination of sound and features as the Dragon Inspire IHA-1. If you’re in the market for a single-ended, directly coupled, all-tube headphone amplifier with the ability to function as a low-noise line-level preamplifier you should seriously consider the IHA-1. And while sonic purity comes at a price, in the IHA-1’s case that price is far less than you would expect for a hand-built, point-to-point-wired, U.S.A.-made component.”

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/arti...one-amplifier/
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  #4965  
Old 09-21-2018, 04:37 PM
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Tyson Tyson is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FloridaBoy View Post
I just read your post in the Pass Labs forum:

I have a Burning Amp 3 which is the best I've heard of the First Watt amps. It's a very cool design, because it has a pot on the input board that lets you dial up (or down) the even order harmonic distortion. Turn it one way and it sounds like an F5 (hyper clean/clear) turn it the other way and it sounds like an Aleph (beautiful). I love mine. But honestly after I discovered high efficiency speakers and low watt tube amps, the BA3 mostly sits in storage.

What speakers are you driving?
Serenity Acoustic Super 7s. There were only 7 ever made, I think because they were underpriced even at their retail price of $20k. I got the last pair ever made, they are freaking awesome. They are fully open baffle, have built in dual 12 inch servo controlled open baffle subwoofers for the bass, 4 of the BG Neo10 planar magnetic midrange drivers and a single, waveguide loaded BG Neo3 for the tweeter. Again, all open baffle. They do 18hz to 22khz easy.
But the best part is the bass is self powered, so my tube amps only have to drive the planar magnetic mids and planar magnetic tweeters, which are all 97db efficient and a flat 8 ohm impedance. Here's a link to a long thread about them - https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=141060.0

The even cooler news is there's a flat pack kit being developed, so the speaker will be available again but you'll have to put it together yourself - https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=159096.0

Here's some pics, I think the speakers look pretty darn cool:












It's hard to see, but those are a pair of 12 inch woofers, each with about 1.8 inches of peak to peak excursion, and they are each powered by their own dedicated power amp (370 watts per side). The amp and woofers have a servo function built in, so not only does the bass punch you in the chest, it also stops on a dime. The design is so cool because it keeps all the traditional strengths of OB bass (musical, detailed, easy room integration) and adds to is a serious amount of grunt and power. The subs cover from 16hz to 200hz and the planar magnetic mids/highs cover 200hz up to 22khz.
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Last edited by Tyson; 09-21-2018 at 05:42 PM.
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  #4966  
Old 09-22-2018, 09:09 PM
decooney decooney is offline
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re: internal wire inside your speaker cables you've settled on for your Inspire amplifier is:

A) Pure oxygen free copper?

B) Silver-plated-over-copper?

C) Pure silver?
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  #4967  
Old 09-23-2018, 07:41 AM
FloridaBoy FloridaBoy is offline
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Very nice speakers Tyson! Have you tried any of the relatively inexpensive tin plated copper wire for speaker cables?
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  #4968  
Old 09-23-2018, 09:52 AM
FloridaBoy FloridaBoy is offline
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Default Sophia Aqua 274B opinions

So what do you think about this tube?
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  #4969  
Old 09-23-2018, 10:01 AM
Breakdown7 Breakdown7 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FloridaBoy View Post
Very nice speakers Tyson! Have you tried any of the relatively inexpensive tin plated copper wire for speaker cables?
This is what I use with my Inspire gear. I enjoy it. It doesn't seem to add any coloration to the signal to me. Just lets the music flow through.
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  #4970  
Old 09-23-2018, 10:36 AM
decooney decooney is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FloridaBoy View Post
Very nice speakers Tyson! Have you tried any of the relatively inexpensive tin plated copper wire for speaker cables?

Agree on Tyson's speakers. Admired them when he posted them a while back thinking how it's not easy to integrate everything and once done success must sound really nice. A very interesting design and build for sure. Super cool

re:
Tinnned wire, read this a while back, quote: "One drawback to copper speaker wire is that it tends to corrode and may eventually break at the corrosion point. Tinned speaker wire is wire that has had solder applied to it to prevent corrosion. Tinning has no impact on audio quality. Tinned speaker wire is used in marine applications due to its resistance to corrosion.".


I have tried tinned wire and did notice a change, but thought it was just the quality of the wire itself, not the tinning. If anything, found it to be a little bright with my systems and speakers, YMMV.
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