Dennis Had Inspire Amps

[Isaacc7]

Originally Posted by Formerly YB-2

Difficult to say for certain. WE had more than one big tube plant. One being in GA, which morphed into their fiber-optic plant. They had another large tube plant in KC. Both were still operating when I left Bell Labs and all WE production plants went thru many changes during the 80s into the 90s during the era of divestiture and the "bably Bells". I'm thinking the current WE people in GA likely got their start with the local WE production gear and Richardson, being in the midwest, likely came from KC and, possibly, from Indianapolis. RCA also had a large tube plant in Indianapolis.

Allan's Cetron tubes are clearly marked 'Made in the USA'.

Interesting, it's cool to hear from someone with actual experience with the companies. I don't put much stock in country of origin labels on tubes. I've seen plenty of "Mullard" tubes marked made in England that were clearly Russian. I have a pair of Tungsram 12sl7 "Made in England" and an identical pair of Philips 12sl7 "Made in Holland."

Still, with the history of WE linked above it sounds like these were actually made in the States.

[Analog Addict]

Dennis told me that these were made on old WE tooling and are as close to WE 300Bs as one could get without the WE label on them. I would further add that they will come with a one week return policy, so they should be run and run hard as soon as a new owner takes possession.

[khashmi]

Happy New Everyone! Here’s a picture of my current rotation on my Inpire amp.

Mazda 5Y3 recitifier
Visseaux 6V6 Output
Melz 1578 Input

On preamp duty—KenRad Black Glass VT-231 and RCA Grey Glass VT-231

Mazda 5Y3, Visseaux 6V6, and Melz 1578 by Tube Dad, on Flickr

[Showme]

I’m in the queue for an Inspire 300B and can’t wait. Excited!!

[Masterlu]

Originally Posted by Showme

I’m in the queue for an Inspire 300B and can’t wait. Excited!!

Congrats!

[Isaacc7]

Originally Posted by Showme

I’m in the queue for an Inspire 300B and can’t wait. Excited!!

Which one? Either one will be amazing. Congrats!

[Showme]

Thanks, the new amp will be a 300B-v. This will be my first Dennis Had amp and my first 300B amp. Not my first SET though.

[Breakdown7]

Congrats Showme! I love my 300B-v and am sure you will love yours as well. Are you going to run it with one source, controlling the volume with the gain knob or going with a preamp? I’ve debating ordering another Inspire preamp from Dennis. I’m not even sure which is the current preamp he’s offering to match the 300B-v amp these days. My last Inspire preamp was an LP-3a. Should have held onto it. I’m holding out for Dennis to surprise us with a matching phono stage soon, and that may push me over the edge to order that and a preamp. Anyway, congrats again on your incoming 300B-v. Happy New Year!

[Showme]

I suppose I’ll try it with a single source for a while but I also have a Decware preamp with three inputs I may try. It’s already being used in a nice sounding system so I hesitate to move it out of that system. I’ll see where I’m led.

[Breakdown7]

Sounds like you have a great plan. Enjoy the music!