The Chardonnay is a great preamp. Clean, detailed and yet not analytical. I was fortunate to get a used one for $1,600.
Preamp Deal of the Century
If anyone is looking for a true "World Class" preamp at a very fair price..heed my advice. I just recieved a Supratek Syrah preamp that was hand built by Mick Maloney in Western Australia, and it is absolutely beautiful! This preamp is the best deal you will ever find. I would put it up against any preamp out there for both looks and sound. Price? $2500 for the Syrah (includes Killer Phono stage). Not into phono? Try the Chardonney line stage for $2100. Don't get me wrong, I am not associated with this company. I am just a very happy owner! This preamp is VERY dynamic, yet liquid. It conveys the sound of music better than any other preamp that I have ever heard! You can check out the Supratek website at www. cantech.net.au
Showing 3 responses by nickb
As I mentioned above, the Supratek Chardonnay is an amazing preamp. It is now a few notches better because of the addition of the Revelation Audio Labs umbilical. Brad put 75 hours on that cable in his shop and I am reaping the benefits. I’ve listened 5 to 6 hours tonight and the improvement is quite significant. A cleaner presentation, better resolving, a richer midrange including vocals etc etc. If it weren’t for the many favorable comments about Brad‘s cable, I wouldn’t have given it a try. The rest of my system is…. Van Alstine SET 120 Control Amp |
Thanks gryphongryph. The Van Alstine is a great little amp and an overachiever for the money. It performs well across the board with the only caveat being I don’t listen to the very low bass recordings. So I can’t comment on that. It was recommended by a member here who is also a Chardonnay owner. I quite like the border patrol SEi dac as well. But I want to preface that by saying that there was a very nice improvement by adding the Jupiter beeswax caps. Cost me $250, but worth the money. I know it measures crappy, but I don’t buy based on measurements and I’m not technically inclined anyway. I will be getting JMR Voce Grandes in a couple of months, so I’ll be curious if the AVA amp, BP dac and iFi Zen streamer will be up to the task. Even though I’ve been in this hobby for over 30 years, these are new benchmarks in sound quality. My goal was for a very musical and engaging sound and I think I’ve achieved that so far. It took me a very long time to get to this point….. |