First Tube amp suggestions

It's more of a short-cut to decide if you are keeping or replacing your current Triangle speakers before you go down the tube amp path. 

Also highly recommend going to YouTube and looking for videos of techs tearing some of the low cost amps apart, and seeing what they test and replace to help eliminate noise and such. 

Look for a used Dennis Had Inspire KT88 Firebottle on audiomart sites. He hasn’t built many, but for $2k you get the performance of a $10k SET amp. He built me one last summer, it blows away my Willsenton R800i and Oldchen EL34 for texture, tone and layers of holographic imagery.

Inspire:

Hey, FYI - as a former owner of Dennis’ Cary and Inspire amps both, I would NOT strongly recommend the Inspire SET or SEP amps to someone with 90db speakers unless they were at least 8ohm nominal impedance, and only wanted to listen at lower volume levels. I ran my custom 93db speakers with Dennis’ Inspire Hot Rod KT150 amp, 10wpc and it was simply NOT enough drive for even low volume level listening. I moved to Quicksilver Mono amps and it was like somebody turned the light on the room by simply having bigger transformers and a bit more power.

Speaker matching is critical with the little mighty Inspire amps, imo.

Great amps with Inspire, yes, but I’d be running 96-100db or more speakers with the little Inspire amps. Some of the higher impedance Proac speakers, 8ohm+ do okay, but you still have to crank it up a bit much.

My audio buddy (SETDude) in FL has two Inspire amps (SEP KT88, SET 45) amps in rotation right now - he’s replacing both with a Cary SLI-80 integrated amplifier which runs 30wpc Triode into his Klipsch Hersey IVs at 96db. Told me this week it is more effortless drive than his little Inspire amps have. Worth noting for someone who is looking for an Integrated amp for 90db sensitivity speakers like the OP with Triangle speakers. Maybe some better options out there for the OP imo. Opinions vary.

Black Ice Audio:

Jumping on the bandwagon, I would also like to put in a good word after helping two friends who had 89/90db 4 & 6ohm speakers and wanted an integrated. While the parts are made overseas and final build in the USA is the case, the folks at BIA are to be commended for their service and support. It’s as close to dealing with the MFG as you can get, in the USA. If you are good with the looks of their amps, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better value for the price and sound - and if you want USA direct service. A few friends have tube rolled new production tubes in their amps too and done well. I’ve been helping friends since old Jolida days, and the new Black Ice Audio amps are another great option to consider, nice integrated amps for the $.

@perkadin "The R8 is a perfect choice if you are ok with "Chi-Fi". "

Self trouble-shooting skills -or- a willing local repair technician with replacement parts may be required. For awareness, quote "Bias board issues, channel issues, loud cracking issues, fixing lead dress, and grounding faults", no circuit diagrams to diagnose it’ and fix it"...

Look around carefully before taking the initial low cost leap.

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/willsenton-r8-channel-issues.1168466/

https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/willsenton-r8-supplier-request.396406/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54WPA5tWyL8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dCF9_r_xgY

@tritube Thank you everyone for such great information. I spoke with the kind folks at Black Ice yesterday and they were very helpful and patient. I think I will be going that route (I am now deciding on the fx10 or pushing my budget to the f11) I can already see this hobby is going to be an expensive one, but am excited to chase the sound I think many of us look for. Thanks again and will post how the my Triangles pair with whatever I end up with!

Jarred at BIA is helpful and you deal with him on issues. No need to worry about email swirl, non-answers, or worrying about having to send the amp back overseas just to get someone to deal with it [or not], on the other low-coast amps that is. 

Some local techs won’t even touch junk any more, not wanting it to come back again for other part failures they had nothing to do with on the first repair. You do get what you pay for on those [other] cheap amps, cheap parts. Some of us call them disposable amps. When they break, you simply throw them away, and buy another. A waste of good money imo.

[integrated] is what you said, right? Well, imo you have to spend up a bit more on integrated amps to get good ones with good parts. If you want to take it next level, some times you can [shop with patience] to secure better quality [used] amps and preamps if you choose to go separates, adding 30% to your budget - but it can pay off later. Many times can resell them for what you paid for them or more years later, only IF they are HIGH in QUALITY build and parts. Not that you want to, but it opens the door up more as another consideration fwiw. Best of Luck.

@tritube whether you go Black Ice Audio, or Rogue Audio, or Quicksilver Audio integrated [for example] or any of these USA manufacturers or distributors, at least you have 1) people who know how to repair the amps in this country, 2) shipping back to the factory is also a more viable option, 3) some of these MFGs will actually still talk to you on the phone - imagine that.

Something to be said about same-country customer service should something go sideways, and usually not. This is what I think most of us are sharing so you have a good tube amp experience. And, these three companies dont get a lot of failures or returns. Since they sell all over the world, they try to engineer out failures with specific parts selection too.

@helomech The same candid salesman who turned me onto the Cayin brand (who didn’t sell Cayin at the time) once told me that Jolida (Black Ice) products don’t perform very well. Maybe the newer stuff is much better but his words were the Jolidas “are POS.” FWIW….

It’s not "worth" much at this point if a consumer is looking at new amps. With a little more research you’ll find a historical split away from the old Jolida brand, Black Ice Audio came into the picture as a new company, new designs by well regarded designers. If you look under the hood of a Black Ice Audio amp, it’s decent.

I’ve helped a few buddies on old Jolida’s still running great with upgrades, and a few other who bought the all new Black Ice Audio, they have been running them for past 3 years with no issues. Questions answered in the USA state of Maryland.

Some of these so called "candid salesmen" are not worth much either. I do not own any Black Ice Audio products by the way yet know several happy customers.

https://blackiceaudio.com/where-are-we-made

@1extreme P.S. I know I will get flamed by the tube cultists. But I am willing to take the flames for you. I currently own a CARY V12R and CARY 805AE mono amps but rarely listen to them anymore preferring to listen to my Plinius SA100 amp.

As a former Cary V12R owner, and Pass/Forte’ true Class-A solid state owner, with the tube amps, after upgrades, replacing the old stock AudioOne caps, adding hexfreds, and better input tubes for my V12R - it became a different amplifier at a different level. Sold it to buy mono tube amps to try. Since then, Cary Audio offers these upgrades for the new Cary 805RS amplifiers. The Mundorf upgrades provide nice transparency, beautiful tone, texture, and soundstage improvements.

I use these upgrades in my current amps and it does make a nice difference.

While many Class A solid state amps are nice, more 2-dimensional sounding. After good warmup, my upgraded tube amps are 3-dimenional, and layered sounding. Each time I switch back to my tube amps, I reflect on why they hold primary position.