Dennis Had Inspire amps and preamps.

No clue about the preamp except that they’re well regarded, but I’ve been raving about the Fire Bottle HO amp ad nauseum since I bought it a couple of months ago…my fave tubes are the supplied new version Gold Lion KT88s with an Amperex 6SN7GTB (NOS USA version I like enough that I bought another one), with a serious looking Shuguang 274B rectifier (the amp came with a JJ 5Y3S that sounded fine, but the other rectifiers seem more suited to the 88s). I tried KT150s in the thing but the 88s sound better to me, and KT77s are just OK in my rig but others have had good sound from those. The new Gold Lion GZ34/U77 is a great sounding rectifier tube also but the 274B just looks so cool…you can hear the tube differences immediately with this amp, and it seems you can stick nearly anything in it and it handles it fine. I use 91db Silverline Prelude speakers with 2 REL subs….best sounding amp I’ve owned in over 5 decades of this stuff….amazing…and FUN.

I had no success with an Inspire Fire Bottle KT88 amp. I really wanted to love it, I even had Dennis custom make it in blue, to match the color of my Cary SLP-98 F1 preamp. Unfortunately, no matter what tubes I tried, and Dennis did send me many to try, I just couldn't get it to open up.
Always sounded closed in and congested, with rolled off highs and lows.

Speakers were Soliloquy 6.3i, which I thought would be a good match, since Dennis helped to design them. No dice.

It was a joy working with Mr Had though. It was a fun experience, and in the end, he had me send it back to him because he was sure it was damaged.
Upon receipt though he said there was nothing wrong with it, so he refunded my money. No harm, no foul.

If it works for you, enjoy it!!!

Wolf and John have such vastly different results with the same power amplifier. Either the speakers used account for this or Wolf has possibly a "later" or "improved" version of this amplifier.

Wolf is the Silverline Prelude a better match than your Sonist speaker with this Had amplifier? Best sounding amplifier you’ve had in 5 decades is quite a compliment, congratulations on obtaining this level of sonic bliss.
Charles

Wolf--Pretty sure your "raving," at least subconsciously, influenced my decision to pull the trigger on it.  I bought my amp lightly used.  It came with GL KT88s, a vintage RCA 5u4g, and a metal base 6sn7w(!).  I've read that Mr. Had pretty much built these to be able to take just about any tube that will fit.  But, I'm afraid to just start changing without knowing.  I'm pretty sure KT77, 6l6, 6ca7, 6550c, kt90, el34, kt90, kt99, kt66, kt120, and kt150 work, but not sure if the rectifier needs to change with the power tubes.  The kt150 is supposed to kick up an extra watt.  It's the one that's supposed to do 17 watts with KT88 and 18 with kt150 (with the big square output transformers).  Can't imagine the tubes last very long burning that hotly, so need to at least have some spares ready.  It sounds great as is, and I imagine the prior owner took some time to roll to the specific tubes.  No "need" to change, but sure wanna try it.

I have a bunch of 6sn7s, but no Amperex.  Maybe I'll hunt one down.

Just for fun, I hooked it up to a pair of power hungry Salks, and it actually sounded good--at conversational level.  It lost its mojo at a reasonable listening level.  It's the best sounding amp that I've tried with Omega 3 HO, even better than with much more expensive PSETs.  It also sounded really good with Sophia Princess Model 2 (88db).  It's a small carpeted room, for now.  Basically taking over the guest room with gear and disrupting domestic tranquility.


John:  How do you like your SLP98?  I have a red one and really like it, but it does this weird thing--as I turn it up to rockin' levels, the singer gets larger and larger--not that the singer gets closer or louder, just larger and takes up more space.  Weird.  Swapping things in and out, I've narrowed it to the SLP98.  That's my only criticism of it.