Preamp Deal of the Century

@deutscherhififan  saw your ad and considered it, but I recently bought a Don Sachs D2. I will add a Supratek one day. Your linestage was beautiful looking. I wouldn't have been brave enough to sell it before hearing the replacement. Looking forward to your review.

Thanks,

Doug A

It might depend on which Isoacoustics you’re using, but I found something more, such as AV Roomservice EVP’s, does a better job of iso under my Chardonnay now Cab (MD for the main, HD for the ps). But then mine are stationed on the bottom shelf, with a sensitive studded floor construction underneath. 

I have a Grange running Psvane 300B (supplied by Mick as stock) Black chrome, previously had a Cabernet dual, with the jarra wood?, I personally liked the cab dual finish better.

The grange is a great amp, very quiet noise wise.

I had a few issues during shipping like the trafo in the power supply getting loose, I had to tightened the central bolt that holds it (not too much since you can deform the top plate), and had to mount the actual pre on 4 isoacoustics as the stock rubber feet tend to be short on length.

Aside of that great pre, congrats @deutscherhififan hope you enjoy it

I got the EML 45 XL tubes and I kind of prefer the 45 over all other 300B I tried but the psvane is actually very decent

My only big regret of which I was aware of is not being able to use MM on it 

deutscherhififan,

You have good taste as that is what I have. Pictures of the Grange on Mick's blog do not do it justice. 

Look forward to hearing your opinion on its performance. 

I ordered a black/chrome unit without tubes with a few minor modifications. My Chardonnay was wood/chrome and was beautiful. I figured I try something different this time... but really, they are all gorgeous. I will report on sonics once preamp and new EML 300B and EML 45 tubes are a bit broken in. xmas is coming early, for sure.

deutscherhififan,

What color/finish did you choose?Please let us know your thoughts on its sonic performance. 

Beautiful piece. 

Happy to report my Grange LS will arrive on Monday via DHL. Ordered beginning of Feb - a real test of patience. I put up my current Chardonnay v3 for sale and it went within 12 hours, a real testament to the strength of the brand Mick has built. I am so excited… will have to ‘work from home’ on Monday…. 

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…..

Nickb, how do you like the Van Alstine amp ?

and your dac ?

Nice system.

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
Supratek Chardonnay preamp
Fritz Carrera 7 BE speakers
Border Patrol SEi dac
iFi Zen Stream & Mojo Audio lps 
Wywires Silver cables & Audio Envy power cords
Roon, Tidal, Qobuz
PI Audio UberBUSS                            

It's official, my Cortese arrived this morning! So far its definitely sounding great! Only a few hours on it but from when I first put it into the system to now I can hear that it has opened up more, at first it sounded a little stuffy but not now lol. Mine is the dark wood base with chrome plate tops. The rest of my system consists of Magnepan 1.7i,and 3.6r's that I switch between sometimes,2 sunfire subs in use when the 1.7i's are playing,PS Audio M1200 amps, chord cutest dac,meridian cd transport and a meridian 518 processor, and my trusty Technics ML-1000 Mk2 Table with a Ortofon TA210 arm which I use different carts with. Everything sounds more lifelike and life-size. My other preamp is no slouch by any means-Marantz7 Preamp,technology moves on but I would still never sell my Marantz. 

Skypop

I just checked and my Chardonnay left England and is enroute to the Ontario Service Area a couple of hours ago by DHL. I really don't think the Chardonnay will reach me by Tuesday June 21 according to DHL tracking.

A little less than a year from now this thread will qualify as an adult. Amazing. Over 20 years old and this thread is still relevant. And Supratek is still producing "the Preamp deal of the Century".

Love my Supratek!

@chuckie yes Mick shipped using DHL. The 22nd is supposed to be the arrival date.

The Chardonnay is a great preamp. Clean, detailed and yet not analytical. I was fortunate to get a used one for $1,600. 

Nothing wrong with the one on the website as I just communicated with him on Friday using it.  

No, other than phoning.

Highstream, my email didn't recognize the Supratek email on the website as a valid email address. Do you know how to contact him? Thanks.

You mean an email bounced? I haven't heard from him since later April, but as others reported here, their orders just shipped. 

Is Supratek still in business?  I thought it went out of business long ago.  The email address on its website seems invalid.

Skypop

Congradulations on your purchase. Did you ship through DHL or another carrier?

@dlcockrum Yes this is my first unit,can't wait to get it in my hands! @chuckie mine is due on the 22nd. Great Father's Day Gift,better than a shirt and Tie combo for sure lol

My Supratek Chardonnay 3 is in transit from Australia via DHL I received the tracking number yesterday. I ordered January 31st  it's due to arrive June 21st according to DHL transit forecast.

@skypop, I just received an early-vintage Syrah (line stage only) and is it superb. I don’t know if the Cortese is your first Supratek preamp, but if so you are in for a sonic realignment of what you thought was possible from a preamp.

My Cortese was shipped a few days ago,it's in the states,so hopefully by the end of the week I'll have it. Ordered the first week of March.

This site has extremely sensitive oversight. If you want more info about my last post, you can find me via head-fi.

Anyone looking for a better umbilical for their Supratek for a really good price? For the second week in a row, Revelation Audio is running an auction here on Agon for a 0.5m cord. The title is "Upgrade for Cary, Supratek - Revelation Audio Labs umbilical power cable." The idea, however, is to participate but not to win, even if you need a different length. Yes, you read that right. PM and I’ll explain.

"world class" is a tall claim, what level of gear was used in the rest of the system to make this evaluation?

I’m not sure your presumption is correct. This subject came up because of SR’s Carbon Tuning Disks, which are meant to be placed on power cords and IC’s to deal with the external fields that the video discusses. Here are are a couple of links, but first I should say that in my system they degraded the sound on balance or at best had no effect, depending on placement, so I returned them. It was hinted to me that they work more assuredly on SR cables. There’s a thread about them at WBF, including a few posts by Denny — https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/new-synergistic-research-carbon-tuning-discs.34386/

My foam tubes are on the interconnects where the AC cord is nearby or crossing,  my goal was to eliminate or reduce those electrical fields in and around the AC from the signal. wire/interconnects. Sorry I wasn't clearer about that, no foam tubes are on the power cords.

I'm not smart enough to fully understand Ted's video but I presumed he was referring to AC flow and that didn't apply to the signal current flow. 

@richmon A bit off topic but I wonder if your foam tubes might not unintended effects on the sound. Off hand, two theoretical hypotheses come to mind (although I’m not an expert): 1) the foam acts as an additional insulator that counteracts the developer’s intended design and construction of the cable(s); and 2) on another forum SR’s Ted Denny recently linked a video that speaks to how the fastest moving electrical fields pass mainly outside the cable, not through the wire, which raises the possibility that your tubes are interfering. For example, in the 19th century the first underwater (ocean) telegraph cables that were held together by iron sheaths were quickly deemed a failure because of the latter’s interference. Foam is not iron, obviously, but what evidence do you have that its properties or mere presence don’t interfere to some degree? The video Denny linked, "The Big Misconception About Electricity, is on YouTube:

My 20yo Chenin is quiet, all cords and IC;s have those foam pipe tubes cut to length and separates AC from the signal wires.

All components seperated on their own shelf, I had hum at one time and that seemed to resolve it.

The Cabernet manual states:

"A gain adjustment knob is provided in case preamp is used with high gain power amps, if noise is an issue adjust gain until noise disappears." The same applies to the Chardonnay.

Adjusting cables is a separate matter. Power cables that cross should do so as close to 90 degrees as possible. I use those cheap rubber-covered foam isolator blocks one finds on eBay to keep cords from touching, and those and bamboo glass coasters held together with wood spindles (Michael's) to keep cables off the carpet.

I humbly suggest you take a close look at how all your cables are dressed. Where they cross, where they parallel each other, how they are seated in the rca inputs & outputs. That has always been the key to getting my system hum-free.

My Chardonnay 3 may function differently (not sure), but I realized that when the gain knob is active, I get noise/hum between 8am and 4pm on the dial, pretty much the entire spectrum except for the very beginning and very end. Hence, I decided to turn off the gain function and instead reduced output by my Hifi Rose RS150B to 500mv. Quiet as a church mouse now, but still have more than enough gain to play loud music.

I turned off the high gain switch on my just-received Cabernet for the reasons you mention. Mick’s design does draw a fair amount of current in start up, although the manual says the noise is ok, i.e., won’t damage the speakers. I blew a pair of 3.15A SR fuses because of it after merely adding ICs for subs, without the latter even having AC cords attached.

I don’t have a phono stage, so adjusting the dac’s volume has been able to compensate. Likewise, I am getting a 60 Hz buzz, just loud enough to be heard at my listening position when everything else is off. That led me to limit the gain knob adjustment to the 12 o’clock position, vs. the 4 o’clock I previously had with the Chardonnay, even with the dac at roughly half volume (I have a regenerator). I haven’t yet rechecked all the connections and ports used. That might be the best first step. The Cab manual does admit the possibility of hum and tube noise issues in finding the best gain settings. Ggod hunting in finding the culprit.

Hello all - loving the Syrah! What a big beautiful robust and inviting sound and stage! I'm using it with a Plinius SA201 to drive a pair of Tannoy Stirling GR's and couldn't be happier over all (beyond some noise issues which I'm confident can be solved....). The phono stage is also just superb with the Hana SL cartridge - I was told by a member that would be the case and he was spot on!

It was brought up to snuff by @jslateiv - it looks and sounds terrific. I have a couple of noise issues that I could use some help with. The low gain pass switch setting is very quiet.

1. The Rush. The higher gain pass switch setting has almost a tube rush sound that's pretty loud and doesn't change - same pitch and loudness with manipulating the volume up or down. The tubes are all NOS (and have settled down/opened up SO nicely) - I have some others coming from Brent Jessie that I'll try once they arrive

2. The Hum. The phono has a hum in addition to the rush sound that's there with high and low pass switch and does change with the volume. I wonder if it might be proximity of the gear to the TT or to each other?  To be honest, grounding my modded Thorens 150 with the captive wires (including two ground wires) of the SME M2-9 has always been vexing and I've never gotten the the hum to totally go away, so there may be some of that going on.

Would switching the placement/proximity of the Syrah units to each other and/or the TT help with either the 'rush' or the the 'hum'?

I put a pic on my profile page to help out if anyone cares to take a look, but the TT is mounted to wall with the Syrah linestage 4 inches away and the power unit four inches from that.

My DAC could switch place of either one of the Syrah units. That Syrah unit could then be moved to another shelf and 8 inches or so from my amp.

As an aside, the power for my system is very clean and isolated with a subpanel, ground/line scrubbers, 3 dedicated lines, and a noise suppressing conditioner between the main and subpanel.

Any and all help is appreciated!

Enjoy the tunes,

Art

I ordered a Chardonnay 3  January 31st and Mick said mine will have the Linlai 6sn7 tubes also. I guess the chrome plating "bling" has also caused my Chardonnay 3 to be delayed. He did mention the supply chain and sourcing tubes is beginning to cause many delays. Patience is still a virtue.......

Chuckie

As I am nearing the end of the originally promised 3 month delivery window, I contacted Mick for an update. As expected, the chrome plating 'bling" is causing a delay of 6 weeks. A real hand on heart test of human patience..... Gotta have the bling, though. The unit (Standard Grange Dual LS) will be front and center in our living room. Will report back with updates. In the meantime, continuing to enjoy my excellent Chardonnay LS, now with LinLai Elite 6SN7s - very nice. 

Congrats to the folks with the new preamps! It took my Cabernet a little while to really open up. I’ve never put much stock into the concept of burn in but the Cabernet underwent a really big change and burn in is the only explanation I can think of. 

My 6SN7 Cabernet arrived Monday. Starting to open up nearing 40 hours in. Like the man said, no hurry. 

Cortese LCR arrived last week. Took about a month from order to delivery if I was willing to forego bling and go with powder coat. It’s in a dedicated room that not any people see, so, fine by me. First serious tube amp replacing Freya. With only a couple dozen hours on it, it’s showing hints of what’s to come. The line stage is enthralling and the phono stage is intoxicating. How much so? I’m loving it so much with my Chapmans that I’ve been letting a pair of recently acquired vandersteen 7’s sit on their pallets upstairs for a couple weeks. No hurry

I must be living under a rock as I never heard of Supratek,
I need to go through Margaret River again.

Also there is a some other work being down down south in the state. 

@markusthenaimnut

Thank you for that post!  Rambling is good.  You hit upon a bunch of thoughts which were tumbling around my brain for a while.  

I think I will be talking to Mick shortly.  And so the next journey begins.

Couple thoughts.

1. I kinda might have been where you are now, about three years ago. I had owned Naim gear, and been satisfied, for a couple of decades plus. BUT, I knew that tube gear would sound better. Not just "different", but better. Better in a musically significant way. But where the f**k to start? Geez! So many well known, well regarded brands. So many enthusiasts. So many different kinds of tubes.

I consider myself lucky to have randomly bumped into someone on one of the many Fora that I was obsessively reading who recommended that I look for a 6SN7 based preamp. I had no idea what he was talking about. But i read more, I sought to learn. I ran across this same thread and scratched my head. I loved the enthusiasm. And lots of guys were saying they’d arrived at Supratek after owning many of the other well known and well regarded brands that I was thinking about. The fact that they voted with their wallets made an impression on me. And the fact that many of them said they considered their search "done" resonated with me. I hate shopping for equipment. I hate the stress. The self doubt. The misgivings. Second thoughts. The potential for buyers remorse. Reading the thread, along with many others here and elsewhere, helped me learn more about myself. And the kind of listener and audiophile I am. I’m kind of a "set it and forget it" kind of guy, BUT the other super important question that must be considered is this one. "How good does it have to be?" The answer (IMNSHO) is "good enough that you don’t think about "I wonder how this could be better?"" Simply speaking, the goal should be superlative performance. That’s what we’re looking for, right? And value, of course, however you might define that.

Ok, that counts as one thought. But I could write a lot more about this subject...

2. Regarding the comment above that "his gear has a reputation for lasting". Well...Shee---yeah it does. It has a transferable LIFETIME warranty. Huh? Say wha...? You heard me right.

Can’t help myself. Gotta’ ramble. Gonna keep going here.

During my career I traveled extensively. Eating out was a constant thing. But *one time* I got lucky and ran across a "Chaîne des Rôtisseurs" restaurant. Frankly, the food was totally next level. Really up there. It was so good I had to talk to the chef. Turned out there were two. The owners. I learned a lot. About quality. And dedication.

Basically, they didn’t care at all about growing their restaurant. Getting bigger. Their restaurant was not large. All they wanted to do was cook. That was what they enjoyed. All the other stuff required to run a business? Do ya’ gotta’ do it? Yeah. But keep it in it’s proper perspective. It’s proper place. Don’t let it take all the fun out of doing what you love to do. The "Chaîne des Rôtisseurs" is basically a bunch of restaurants that are run by the same kind of dedicated, somewhat insane, fanatics who just want to cook the very best food they can. That’s where their fulfillment comes from.

To me, Mick Maloney and Supratek, along with a small number of other dedicated hard-core builders, are like those "Chaîne des Rôtisseurs" chefs who schooled me so long ago. You’ll find these builders referred to with deep respect, almost in the same hushed, fanatical, reverent tones. Not all of them are still in business. Some have chose to move on to other occupations. A pity, because their equipment is at that "next level" I’m talking about.

They just like building great stuff! Almost all of them are tiny, boutique builders. Hand built. Point to point wiring. Solid, solid design. Superb execution. FANTASTIC SOUND. Am I saying Supratek is the best? No. I have no basis upon which to express such an opinion, nor, do I believe, does anyone else. There’s simply too much equipment out there, much of it very good, to hear it all. Should it matter that long-term Stereophile reviewer Dick Olsher owns a Supratek? Probably not, but I like it that he does. He can probably own, or obtain on long-term loan, any piece of equipment he desires, from anywhere in the world, regardless of cost.

One final thing to say in this long, rambling, hard-to-follow post. I paid more for my Supratek than I’ve paid for almost anything I’ve ever bought, other than a couple of cars and the houses I’ve lived in. Most of my cars over the last 40 years cost me less than my Supratek. Ya’ know what? I’ve never, not even once, not ever never ever, had one tiny particle of buyers remorse. I’ve only ever had long term satisfaction and gratitude to God that I ended up being in the position where I could afford it and it was available.

So no, I don’t think you’re crazy to be considering a Supratek. I think you’re saving yourself a lot of money, time and hassle.

Just thought of one last thought to share. You *might* be thinking "if Supratek stuff is so good, how come I never see any of it reviewed in the magazines?" Well, consider that Mick’s always sold out and has a waiting list. So do many of the other so highly regarded small-boutique builders. He doesn’t advertise. Doesn’t need to. There’s absolutely no incentive for a magazine to review his stuff. They’ll never earn a penny from him advertising. What does he need? A longer waiting list? Why? Better to keep the public chasing that "next greatest thing" and churning through upgrades that are really side-grades and distractions. After all, if people bought equipment and were satisfied with it, and it lasted forever, where would the industry be?

Modicum of sense, I'd say. You might want to read Mick's Guide to buying a preamp discussion to get a sense of what he's up to. If you look around for reviews of his gear, not a whole lot, you might come across some criticism of his "spaghetti" style of point to point wiring. It's something he apparently has cleaned up to some extent, although I haven't looked inside. It doesn't bother me, as he is not alone in point to point wiring among good developers and his gear has a reputation for lasting. The Chardonnay is a good place to start, although if I were having the internal debate again, I'd have better gone with a 6SN7 Cabernet. If you're willing to roll tubes, the stock set can be improved upon significantly. In any case, try  communicating your thinking and desires with Mick, see what he has to say. 

Over the last year I have been playing around in the low fi end of things.  It started with my first "audiophile" headphones.  Then a good amp.  Then a tube amp (which has introduced me to a sound that my SS stuff can't seem to reproduce).  Then entry level speakers, and a gradually building cache of components.  Nothing expensive really.  Now  I have several systems that I am able to play around with to gain a sense of what component and speaker pairing  as well as room setup and speaker positioning will do to the sound. Some things make me smile, others make me occasionally grimace, but overall a lot of fun which has drawn me in a little deeper.

Anyway... As I begin to mull over the prospect of  heading to the next level I am almost paralyzed by the myriad of options combinations and opinions on pretty much everything.   Then I stumbled upon this thread.   I have never experienced such unbridled enthusiasm.  Truthfully as I wade slowly into the audiophile waters this level of enthusiasm really makes me want to simply talk to Mick, order one of his wonderful looking (and apparently fantastic sounding) pre amps and build a system around that as my starting point.  Is this crazy or does it make a modicum of sense.  

Any help or encouragement or guidance would be great!

I gotta say, using 12j5gt tubes in my Cabernet has been an ear opener. The round plate Sylvania tubes have been a clarity revelation and the JAN Tungsol are no slouch. I don't think I'd want a preamp that only uses 6/12j5 tubes but it is easy to use adapters in the *sn7 preamps. The *j5 tubes are still fairly cheap, and that goes doubly (halfly?) for the 12v tubes. 

Let us know how it works out. I didn’t want a dual, primarily to keep things simple. As I read the discussion on his site, Mick thinks a 6SN7 preamp provides the best sound, so whether it’s with Cab or Grange circuitry, I think we’ll do well. Be interested to hear about the comparison with the 300B.

@highstream I did not order the Grange Signature LS since I also did not want to deal with a new type of driver tube (have many 6SN7s). I ordered the ’regular’ Grange LS which is really a ’dual’, allowing to use the 300B or 6SN7 circuits. I asked Mick if both can be made with balanced outputs, but he did not commit. Let’s see.... However, if one is balanced (the 300B/45 circuit) and the 6SN7 only has singled ended outputs, it makes switching back and forth a bit more work. I will be happy either way, but the ability to use the same cable would be awesome.