Dennis Had Inspire Amps

[bearcity]

Originally Posted by oldominion

I remain interested in this modification and am surprised more people haven't weighed in.

I had hum issues with a high (98db) speaker combined with my Inspires and decided the amp and pre sounded better than the speakers so redirected to finding speakers that better fit the Inspire line. A different path.

[straitwire]

Hey guys, I have worked with Dennis for over sixteen years.
Ten years at Cary Audio Design and six years building Inspire amps.
And under Dennis's guidance I have built, modified, updated, or upgraded thousands of amps, preamps, speakers and just about anything else you can think of.
And I have also repaired amps, preamps and other equipment that was butchered by third party "expert technicians" that didn't have a clue as to what they were doing.
My advice to you is that if you have a question or an issue with your Inspire product, contact Dennis and please DO NOT send your unit to anyone else.
If you send an email to Dennis and you don't get an immediate reply, please be patient.
Dennis gets hundreds of emails from people asking questions about Inspire amps such as, what's new or purchasing or will it work with their system.
As well as other questions ranging from send me a schematic (as if!) or send me the parts and I will build it myself (seriously?) and of course lots emails from crackpots that ask all kinds of crazy stuff.
You would not believe the questions he gets sometimes
Dennis has to sift thru all this stuff to find your email, so it takes time.
Dennis has been designing and building amps, preamps, phono preamps, speakers, power supplies, HAM radio equipment, and just about anything else electronic that you can think of since the 1950's, HE HAS SEEN IT ALL!!
So please don't risk your Inspire equipment by sending it to a third party...trust me, it never ends well......straitwire...

[GeAllan70]

^^^

[pechelman]

Originally Posted by oldominion

I remain interested in this modification.....

olddominion, at this point, maybe it's better if we take this discussion off the forum. If you'd be so kind, please email me. My address is my username as shown on this forum through gmail.

Originally Posted by straitwire

Hey guys, I have worked with Dennis for over sixteen years.
Ten years at Cary Audio Design and six years building Inspire amps.
And under Dennis's guidance I have built, modified, updated, or upgraded thousands of amps, preamps, speakers and just about anything else you can think of.
And I have also repaired amps, preamps and other equipment that was butchered by third party "expert technicians" that didn't have a clue as to what they were doing.
My advice to you is that if you have a question or an issue with your Inspire product, contact Dennis and please DO NOT send your unit to anyone else.
If you send an email to Dennis and you don't get an immediate reply, please be patient.
Dennis gets hundreds of emails from people asking questions about Inspire amps such as, what's new or purchasing or will it work with their system.
As well as other questions ranging from send me a schematic (as if!) or send me the parts and I will build it myself (seriously?) and of course lots emails from crackpots that ask all kinds of crazy stuff.
You would not believe the questions he gets sometimes
Dennis has to sift thru all this stuff to find your email, so it takes time.
Dennis has been designing and building amps, preamps, phono preamps, speakers, power supplies, HAM radio equipment, and just about anything else electronic that you can think of since the 1950's, HE HAS SEEN IT ALL!!
So please don't risk your Inspire equipment by sending it to a third party...trust me, it never ends well......straitwire...

There may be a few assumptions in the above that I will refrain from addressing (unsure if they are directed fully toward me). I was also gracious in my latest reply with the before/after graph, and I'd like to leave it at that.

I'll say two things however.

First, this is not a new issue. I had reached out to Dennis two separate times after originally receiving the preamp (8/19) about the hum with no response. I had reached out to this forum a couple of times before the most recent postings. I am not the only one who has documented experiencing hum with higher sensitivity speakers. All of this hum I experienced was originally noted using a 45 firebottle and was an issue I was willing to tolerate given its amplitude was relatively minor, though it was still audible from my listening position DURING some music playback. It only become intolerable after I hooked it up to an amplifier with 20dB of gain....which while more than the firebottle is still on the low end of most solid state power amps which I think are usually in the 27-30dB range.

Second, I agree with straitwire: Do not allow anyone to work on your equipment you don't fully trust. You alone own full responsibility for the decisions you make.

edit: I'd like to amend slightly or at least level-set what I meant by that second note, as some times things are inferred that are not meant in forum posts. This is in no way directed toward anyone. It is a general statement intended to apply to anything/anyone.

[maro]

Originally Posted by oldominion

FireBottle Inspire.

Also, a Waamamp 45/2a3 (which also hums...)

Often thought my Magi phono pre had something to do with it but the hum is the same in both inputs (phono and signal coming from DAC).

I had an issue with hum and finally traced it down to the cable box ground. You may want to disconnect your cable input (if you have one). if the hum goes away as it did in my situation get an Isomax cable isolation device. It goes inline with the cable hook-up.

[ismelllikepoop]

Man this thread has gotten huge! Haven't been on here in awhile, so hard to sift through so many pages. How do people get these customized versions I don't see on eBay? I had an el84 one that I regretfully sold maybe 4 or 5 years ago. On eBay it seems like there's one design he does for a few months then changes it up, but I was hoping to get an el84 one again.

[straitwire]

Hey ismelllikepoop, the EL84/6BQ5 is a great sounding tube.
The first amp I built when I started working with Dennis was this little jewel.
I still have it in my regular rotation...
But we haven't built many of them since we started building amps with 8 pin tubes.

[IMG][/IMG]

[ismelllikepoop]

Found the photo of my old one. I gotta ask was are the RCA jacks for the preamps lined up better? They were a little crooked on mine, which bugged the crap outbif me.

[oldominion]

Still having a little instability in the preamp! Sounds so great--SO GREAT!-- but something is clearly amiss. It might be a tube...I just can't tell.

Twice today I've gotten a shockingly loud WWWHHHOOOOOMMMM through my speakers out of nowhere! It's happened after the stereo's been playing for a few hours. Using the 3.1 into the FireBottle. After troubleshooting I determined the source was the preamp. Just happened ten mins ago and only came out of left channel, so I'm hoping it's one of the fancy blue Sophia 6sn7's I bought and not something with the preamp. Happened twice today...crazy.

Could this have anything to do with the hum or microphony? Not sure.

I've sent an email to Dennis, will let you know what we figure out.

[oldominion]

BTW, has happened with different rectifiers and with different buffer tubes, so the problem is either with the Sophia 6sn7's or with something in the preamp.