Upgraded McCormack DNA-1 or Dennis Had Inspire SEP?

@jsbw

 My new Dennis Had Inspire arrived today.Holy SH!T this was the absolute right choice

@charles1dad 

Congratulations and welcome to the wonderful sounding genre of low power tube amplifiers.

Fasten your seatbelt, or prepare to watch for different routes ahead.  Amazingly, the circuit design will change again for yet a whole new-better-wow version of "slinging solder" coming out soon,  out with the old and in with the new. Nope!  

It's unreal how many new circuits and variations can be discovered and different rectifier tubes to try with a small simple SEP tube amp :) Hopefully not to get on that rotating treadmill and just enjoy it. It takes a good preamp to make that amp sound its best. My inspire went to a new happy owner, enjoy!   

@gwng8 Sorry, just noticed you replied here. He was super passive aggressive about me getting back on. I went ahead and paid the fee because Dennis actively monitors the thread and answers questions sometimes via one of the posters. Hope you're enjoying the amp! I continue to be amazed and have made some more tube discoveries at the expense of my budget lol. 

Update: 

after a bit of tube rolling, I’ve settled on two sets of tubes, and left it at that. When I feel the itch to switch, I simply change one for the other.

haven’t missed the McCormack at all.

But now I’m developing an obsession with low-powered Nelson Pass designs… :)

@jsbw "after a bit of tube rolling"...

Nah, really? 🤣 That was my only frustration with my prior Inspire and a pile of sets of different tubes leftover. i.e. With my tube dac, along came a list of tubes and rankings with helpful listening reviews of each to decide which ocean to go fish. DH and his loyal followers could help a little more with a similar list to save folks some money and mystery. It's all speaker-dependent with that amp with little margin for error. An upgraded McCormick would be nice to have around and rotate in once in a while, imo. Enjoy, happy listening!