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Inspire by Dennis Had Enjoying Vacuum Tube Audio

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  #61  
Old 06-26-2019, 10:56 AM
oldominion oldominion is offline
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I'm using Klipsch Cornwalls with my newish Inspire FireBottle Universal and LP 3.1 preamp; currently using the metal 6f6's in the output, which sound great. Pretty perfect through the spectrum. Great sparkle in the top end. Wonderful bass as well. A recommended pairing. The Cornies like power but can be driven very pleasantly with the few watts coming from the 6f6.

VERY puzzled with my Altec 604 8G's in 612 cabs. Would be curious to know if anyone else has run their Inspire with these? I purchased a pair earlier this spring and just cannot get them to sound right with any amp, including the Inspire...such a supposed classic pair of speakers, but, man, they are finicky. Have considered moving to bigger cabs, but at a certain point in this hobby you have to cut your losses! On a relatively small percentage of recordings, when paired with the Inspire, they sound so good it's almost creepy. But with the majority of recordings, I'd put it in the 70% range, they sound, as a friend mentioned, "like a giant AM radio"! This was not a compliment...Have tried with numerous amps, same results. Oh well.

Anyhow, loving these Had products. Impossible to imagine selling these as I've done with so many other amps/preamps/speakers, etc. Not many people praise Dennis for creating products with small footprints...I appreciate this greatly.
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  #62  
Old 06-27-2019, 10:41 AM
decooney decooney is offline
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A discussion about required power vs. speaker efficiency from the other thread. https://www.audioaficionado.org/show...postcount=5349

A friend has a pair of huge 103DB custom Altec Onken speakers we built (3 pairs in fact), with the largest horns made from Altec. We played and tested these speakers with a 3wpc 2A3 amp, 5w and 8wpc 300B Audio Note Triode mono amps with best parts available including massive transformers and vintage WE300B tubes. We then tried it with my 50wpc strapped triode map. Nobody was expecting what occurred. The results were interesting.

The former 50-year tech and proud owner of these large Onken speakers along with a few other of his friends commented "how much more grunt" added presence and impact the larger 50wpc amp provided playing these 103db@1W speakers provided compared to all of the fleawatt amps he tried. The interesting part of this is nobody with the fleawatt amps was expecting anything close to these results. I heard the same 50wpc Triode strapped amp with upgraded Harbeth 40.1 speakers. Good fun trying different things to see what happens Guess we never know til' we try it.
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  #63  
Old 06-27-2019, 12:56 PM
maro maro is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by decooney View Post
A discussion about required power vs. speaker efficiency from the other thread. https://www.audioaficionado.org/show...postcount=5349

A friend has a pair of huge 103DB custom Altec Onken speakers we built (3 pairs in fact), with the largest horns made from Altec. We played and tested these speakers with a 3wpc 2A3 amp, 5w and 8wpc 300B Audio Note Triode mono amps with best parts available including massive transformers and vintage WE300B tubes. We then tried it with my 50wpc strapped triode map. Nobody was expecting what occurred. The results were interesting.

The former 50-year tech and proud owner of these large Onken speakers along with a few other of his friends commented "how much more grunt" added presence and impact the larger 50wpc amp provided playing these 103db@1W speakers provided compared to all of the fleawatt amps he tried. The interesting part of this is nobody with the fleawatt amps was expecting anything close to these results. I heard the same 50wpc Triode strapped amp with upgraded Harbeth 40.1 speakers. Good fun trying different things to see what happens Guess we never know til' we try it.
Like anything there are trade-off's to low and higher power amps. With higher power you can crank the volume, soundstage gets expansive, dynamics and bass have impact and it will fill a large room with volume. However tone, texture and timbre are often not as good. My high power tube amps and Wilson W/P are great for a big sound. But in my smaller room the low power 6v6 Inspire leaves the big system in the dust when it comes to sounding real on Sax, Trumpet, and voice. Good to have both sounds.
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  #64  
Old 06-30-2019, 06:41 AM
FloridaBoy FloridaBoy is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by oldominion View Post
I'm using Klipsch Cornwalls with my newish Inspire FireBottle Universal and LP 3.1 preamp; currently using the metal 6f6's in the output, which sound great. Pretty perfect through the spectrum. Great sparkle in the top end. Wonderful bass as well. A recommended pairing. The Cornies like power but can be driven very pleasantly with the few watts coming from the 6f6.

VERY puzzled with my Altec 604 8G's in 612 cabs. Would be curious to know if anyone else has run their Inspire with these? I purchased a pair earlier this spring and just cannot get them to sound right with any amp, including the Inspire...such a supposed classic pair of speakers, but, man, they are finicky. Have considered moving to bigger cabs, but at a certain point in this hobby you have to cut your losses! On a relatively small percentage of recordings, when paired with the Inspire, they sound so good it's almost creepy. But with the majority of recordings, I'd put it in the 70% range, they sound, as a friend mentioned, "like a giant AM radio"! This was not a compliment...Have tried with numerous amps, same results. Oh well.

Anyhow, loving these Had products. Impossible to imagine selling these as I've done with so many other amps/preamps/speakers, etc. Not many people praise Dennis for creating products with small footprints...I appreciate this greatly.
I would contact Great Plains Audio and discuss your Altec issue. They are the Altec Guru's.
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  #65  
Old 06-30-2019, 10:45 AM
decooney decooney is offline
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Originally Posted by FloridaBoy View Post
I would contact Great Plains Audio and discuss your Altec issue. They are the Altec Guru's.
The retired tech that upgraded my former Cary amps had us build three sets of these type Alted-Onken cabinets for him and a few friends. This is an example of what the base unit looked like, and he ended up going with the next larger size up horns. All of the drivers came from Great Plains. The difference was worth it in his eyes. Tried them with 3w,5w,8w,50w.



Last edited by decooney; 07-05-2019 at 11:29 AM.
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  #66  
Old 04-14-2020, 03:37 PM
Bombadil Bombadil is offline
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Recently reread the fabulous review of the Inspire amp by 10 Audio from back in 2016. He listened to 6V6, KT88, KT120, and KT150 tubes and preferred the KT120. But the only 6V6 he tried was a new production JJ.

"I found the 6V6 tubes to have a nice warm midrange, but with noticeably limited bass and upper treble response. KT88s sound very good, although I preferred the upper frequency clarity and extension offered by both the KT120 and KT150 tubes. The KT120 power tubes sound wonderful with the 95 dB Emerald Physics 4.7 speakers, which can deliver 90 dB SPL at the listening seats in my room with only 1.5 Watts (and 100 dB SPL with 15 Watts). These power tubes were also preferred with the Fritzspeakers Carrera BEs which have much lower efficiency spec of 87 dB."

http://www.10audio.com/inspire_fire-bottle.htm

I like the KT120 very much in mine. I've tried only the Russian Tung-Sol. Powerful, defined, and yet still smooth. Used in many high-end tube amps. I've read good things about the Shuguang Treasure KT-120-Z, but I believe it was discontinued and now very hard to find.

Last edited by Bombadil; 04-14-2020 at 04:49 PM.
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  #67  
Old 04-14-2020, 08:25 PM
decooney decooney is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bombadil View Post
Recently reread the fabulous review of the Inspire amp by 10 Audio from back in 2016. He listened to 6V6, KT88, KT120, and KT150 tubes and preferred the KT120. But the only 6V6 he tried was a new production JJ.

"I found the 6V6 tubes to have a nice warm midrange, but with noticeably limited bass and upper treble response. KT88s sound very good, although I preferred the upper frequency clarity and extension offered by both the KT120 and KT150 tubes. The KT120 power tubes sound wonderful with the 95 dB Emerald Physics 4.7 speakers, which can deliver 90 dB SPL at the listening seats in my room with only 1.5 Watts (and 100 dB SPL with 15 Watts). These power tubes were also preferred with the Fritzspeakers Carrera BEs which have much lower efficiency spec of 87 dB."

http://www.10audio.com/inspire_fire-bottle.htm

I like the KT120 very much in mine. I've tried only the Russian Tung-Sol. Powerful, defined, and yet still smooth. Used in many high-end tube amps. I've read good things about the Shuguang Treasure KT-120-Z, but I believe it was discontinued and now very hard to find.

Saw this on another site in 2019, have not clue if it's true (not validated):

Quote: "

I copied this from another site and have been unable to confirm.

Not sure everyone is aware, but the Shuguang tube factory is closed. There was a fire last August. The fire was in a building adjacent to the tube factory buildings, so the good news is none of the tube manufacturing equipment has been damaged, but the Changsha city government won’t allow the tube factory to continue operating.

There had already been plans to move the tube factory. Latest word is the new Shuguang tube factory will begin production in about 18 months.

It appears all the good stock is gone now, so be wary of any stock that appears in the near future, it could be inferior quality that has been sold as they liquidate the remaining dregs in the warehouse prior to the move.
, endquote ".
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  #68  
Old 04-15-2020, 12:21 PM
Bombadil Bombadil is offline
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Looks like I posted in the wrong thread. Sorry. At least the review I linked did include comments about how the amp performed with two very different speakers. I'd like to hear my Inspire driving an Emerald Physics open baffle speaker.
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  #69  
Old 04-16-2020, 09:23 PM
decooney decooney is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bombadil View Post
Looks like I posted in the wrong thread. Sorry. At least the review I linked did include comments about how the amp performed with two very different speakers. I'd like to hear my Inspire driving an Emerald Physics open baffle speaker.
interesting, 96-100db speakers capable of 250w/500w RMS peaks. I wonder how they sound with a 8w SET amp. It does mention at least 20w minimum, yet they sell 250-300w solid state amps. Look like fun speakers in any case.
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  #70  
Old 04-16-2020, 10:59 PM
Bombadil Bombadil is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by decooney View Post
The former 50-year tech and proud owner of these large Onken speakers along with a few other of his friends commented "how much more grunt" added presence and impact the larger 50wpc amp provided playing these 103db@1W speakers provided compared to all of the fleawatt amps he tried.
I have been told the same by multiple owners of speakers rated in the neighborhood of 100dB@1W. One told me that he likes his 101db speakers best with amps in the 250W & up range. That he would never run them with less than 100wpc.

All of these people told me that the speakers really open up and sparkle with the big power amps. That there is this unrestrained aspect to the sound, of instantaneous reproduction of any note.
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