A little mini review based on my listening so far:
I've had the Inspire on all evening. The low level detail retrieval this amp has is impressive. It's also the most unforced musical presentation I've ever heard. Even bad recordings that are mixed hot sounds great on the Inspire. I dare say it almost lives a wee bit too much in that beautiful midrange, but this is certainly a showcase of everything that's great about tubes. The whole frequency range is very natural and coherent, but on the LCD-2s sometimes the upper ranges feel a little too polite.
I compared a bit to my 45 and came away surprised. The 45 is a very upfront sounding amp, at times I have wondered if maybe the driver stage isn't overloading the 45 tubes a bit, but it brings a sense of true to life scale to music that is well recorded. When comparing against the Inspire this quality of the 45 seem a little less appealing with some material, and reveals some soundstage/imaging congestion I hadn't really heard before too. I think the Inspire might resolve a bit more fine detail too, it has an advantage here what with the 45 amp having two gain stages and coupling caps. The additional components in the signal path filter a bit of plankton. Both are very detailed overall but the two amps have a somewhat different sense of character in how they present it. My 45 has more true to life vocal tones and feels like it has more dynamic scale on some recordings. It also has faster and harder hitting bass. The Inspire's bass is coming along and sounds better than it did on my first listen, but the 45 just out slams it and still has great control.
I'm really impressed with the Inspire. I didn't buy it thinking it would give my 45 an honest run for its money. I have more money sunk in that 45 in pure parts costs alone than what the Inspire costs to buy. Weighed with costs in mind I think the Inspire might be the better amp. Dennis's many years of experience really shows. This minimalist design really pays off in producing music that sounds completely natural and believable. The Inspire doesn't necessarily hit you with that big "wow" factor the way some amps do on the very first listen, but once you settle in with the amp it wins you over completely.