Preamp Deal of the Century

Gentlemen, I can give you some information on what you may expect if you ever have to send your Supratek preamp back to Mick for repair. (See Ozzy's post of 7-10-02). I recently purchased a used Syrah that produced a hum in my system. I corresponded with Mick. After discussion he offered to update the preamp (which was an old model) to current specs for only the cost of shipping!! We ended up adding a few more things to it (jacks, impedance selector) for a very modest cost. It also came back all polished up. And (I hate to tell you this) he bumped me up to the front of the line since I needed service. The bottom line is Mick believes it is very important to give first class service after the sale. Service to current customers gets priority over new orders.
BTW, after only a brief listening so far, this thing might actually be as good as the hype!

Hpdhondo, I would not worry about getting into tubes because, in my opinion, it's not that big a deal. I have been using tube preamps for twenty years and have never had any problems with them. You may need to replace the tubes occasionally. I have used tube amps for 15 years and have had a tube blow or become noisy a few times and replacing the tube solved the problem. Tube amps require more fiddeling if you have to reset the bias periodically, but tube preamps only require fresh tubes occasionally. I know very little about their innerworkings, I just like the way they play music.

I have a Syrah also; it's a very nice preamp. If you can, go for it.