Preamp Deal of the Century
They come with a remote and both have volume knobs. Here's what Mick said when I asked about the difference: "The circuit is the same, it uses expensive transformers and capacitors. Its different sounding, whether its worth the extra expense is subjective . Its still very good value, better than some $20K preamps I’ve heard." Take a look at http://www.supratek.com.au/ and also the guide to choosing a preamp page. The price page says remote. |
Man you guys are making it hard for me to decide which preamp I want to get next. I like the idea of having a separate power supply box so Supratek intrigues me. Does Micks preamps come with adjustable gain or is that an optional upgrade? My current preamp can adjust and it’s nice to have when switching out amps so I’d like to keep that luxury. As far as models go, anybody know the difference between the Chardonnay and Cabernet 6sn7? Does the Cabernet have a beefier power supply? Thanks for any help! |
Supratek's Mick Malony will be sending to me - in April - a Cortese LCR Preamp. I shall provide -here- my comments as the Cortese will be driving a Pair of Rogue M180. The Cortese LCR will be in place of a -very reputable - rather, but a Solid State Preamp. I adored this preamp in other's systems, but never in my set up & room. Let's see. Joseph - Sydney |
Hi Marcus, Having purchased the Allnic H7000 a few months back I can certainly vouch for it's presentation. Had I known about the Cortese I would have gone in that direction primarily for the savings. Of all my components the Allnic disappears to the greatest extent. Albert Porter is a great source for Allnic gear, and did me right. That said, Mick has done a great job providing thousands of music listeners with hi quality units at reasonable prices. His preamp is the perfect match for my amps. |
1. Phono stage (LCR in my Cortese) is superb. Note that Allnic charges many many thousands of dollars (I'm not confident of the prices I've seen in my searches on the 'net tonight and don't want to guesstimate) but it is included in the Cortese. The Allnic gear is very beautiful and I would love to try it some time, but it's way beyond my budget. 2. Description of the Supratek sound - Gorgeous. Please track down my review of the Cortese which is probably somewhere in this thread or somewhere nearby. This preamp convinced me that tubes are not "introducing euphonic distortion" (at least not in this equipment). They are simply conveying what is in the recording. The line stage has greatly increased the pleasure I derive from streaming. |
It SUCKs....Dat’s why I bought a New Chardonnay GEN 3 Pre that replaced my $8000 BAT 32se Pre..and beat it in every important Audiophile Parameter!!....It’s sound is "like a color you never seen before and a Flavor you never tasted"...No "audiophile speak" can do it justice.."my opion"...you wanna break out your "audio crayons" and color the sound to your taste...go ahead... lot of great 6SN7’s out there!...Take the $2000 plunge..What do you have to lose?...If you don’t think Micks New Pre"s are not The Rave we think and Know they are (who own the new GEN 3) ...Sell it...it will be sold in A New York Min!..Since the New GEN 3 hit the ground ...Mick is Backed up a few Months...so jump in...the Audio Supratek water is VERY warm!! |
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Highstream - Sorry I overlooked your question. I was wrestling with the same question and was on the verge of ordering the Sachs preamp when I learned about the Supratek series. I elected to go with the Supratek partly because I could get it with a high-end phono stage. I can't answer your question about the differences between the Chardonnay and the Cabernet. Much of the original content on this thread dates back to the early 2000's and Mick has continued to evolve his preamps since then. I humbly suggest you contact Mick directly with any questions you might have. |
I'll reply to myself. Decided to go with the Supratek for a number of reasons, starting with availability of balanced outputs w/o extra tubes for ATC balanced active speakers and natural warmth. But what I'm curious about now is the difference between the Chardonnay and the Cabernet, if anyone has experience with them. Can't find any reviews of the latter since 2006 or so. |
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Congrats!!...Had mine since july 2019 and your in for a treat...its ear and eye candy....best 2K i EVER spent on a GIANT killer of a pre...TRUTH!!....aslo had great results with the
SHUGUANG WE6SN7( that Don Sachs told me about) over the stock Russian tubes (and at least 4 combo's of very good NOS 6SN7's)....just sum audio food for thought....(As everthing in Audio YMMV)....ENJOY!! |
New Chardonnay MK3 ordered after great email exchanges with Mick. It has everything I would want in a preamp: adjustable gain, balanced in/out, remote volume, gorgeous appearance, separate power supply, lifetime warranty, and tubes. Went for the chrome and wood version.....the wait is killing me.... I will report back how I like it when it arrives in December. |
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Greetings....Mick just shipped out my new Chardonnay yesterday and I am counting down the days till it gets here..,,So glad i found out about supratek thru this Thread...soo thanks to all....it will be replacing my old but still very good BAT VK-3i preamp...i was looking to go up the BAT ladder till i ran across this thread....I will be running the Supratek with a pair of Rogue audio 180 mono blocks...speakers are the Sweet Martin Logan Montis with dual Vandersteen subs...Digital is the New Audio Mirror Tubadour 3 Dac(which is a STEAL at the price and made me sell my Schitt audio Yggy 2 Dac and not look back)..transport is the Cambridge CXC(weakest Link and hope to upgrade soon) all with top of the Line Acoustic Zen Cable....Supratek Stocked to Join the club...so Love..peace and chicken grease for all the great Help along the Way!!!!!!! |
Oh my merciful heavens. Yes, I play a lot of digital, both cd and via a streamer. Frankly, the line stage is superb. It is so good that it is giving me an opportunity to reflect on how much more I want to invest in additional physical media (though i am in the process of updating my second turntable as I type this). It's just that I have thousands and thousands of records and am not sure I "need" more. But I am planning on getting a more capable streamer & DAC later this year. I concur that the remote is fairly simple, but it controls the volume very well, and that's what is most important to me. If I'm switching between sources I probably would have to get up anyway. And a nice, stylish, good looking remote would probably add several hundred dollars to the cost. And it would do nothing for the sound, which is what Mick has prioritized above all else. |
Hello Markus, You have only touched the surface of the sound you will get from the Cortese. It continues to get better over time and should amaze you. I know my sound got better for quite a while after I got the preamp. This preamp should suit you well since you don't seem to be the type to change equipment often. I have only owned 2 preamps since 2003 and they have both been Supratek's. |
1. There is zero hiss from the preamp. Not through my ESL 63s, driven by Innersounds Electrostatic Amplifier or through my 93dB efficient JBL 4430s. 2. It is superb at all volume levels. 3. The volume knob is extremely solid. Both the volume knob and selector switch feel very solid and substantial to my hand. I would say they feel "tighter" than any of the other preamps, receivers or integrateds I've owned, from Luxman, Naim and Eico. |
Hi all, I posted the text below in another thread that I started earlier this year - titled something like "Don Sachs vs. Supratek - how to choose" but, since I've been reading this thread for something well over a month (hey! I finally made it up to page 21! still going strong) I thought I'd also post it here. My new preamp is a Cortese gen. 3 with LCR phon stage. It's awesome. Anyway, here's what I wrote: Sorry if this runs a little long, but I recently took delivery of my new Supratek Cortese preamp with LCR phono stage. The purpose of this post is to share my decision making process and experience in the hope that it will help others “find their way” through what was, for me, a somewhat daunting process. Overall, I have learned a lot and my perspective on audio and hi-fi has changed. I used a Naim NAC 82 with a hicap power supply for about 15 years. The 82 replaced a Naim 72 that I’d had in my system for well over 10 years. I always enjoyed my system when using the Naim preamps but knew there was better equipment out there. As I prepared for retirement I started researching tube preamps. I read a lot on various forums, asked many dumb questions (still lots of those left to go) and decided to seek out a preamp based around the 6SN7 tube; while there are discussions about which 6SN7 is the best, for the most part it seems this tube is almost universally well regarded for audio applications. Correspondingly, my search eventually boiled down either to a Don Sachs Model 2 or a Supratek. I had actually decided to purchase a Don Sachs unit before learning about Supratek but got hung up in the wife/budget approval process, so continued to research. The two companies/builders have much in common. Both are run by highly respected builders and are (as far as I understand) one man operations. Many of those who own pieces from either one of these builders describe the experience of listening to the equipment in glowing terms; many owners of each brand share that they came to it after ownership of products from many other highly regarded brands, such as Conrad Johnson and Audio Research. The reviews and comments on the internet seem to come from dedicated, long-term audiophile owners who swear by the product and state that their preamp is never leaving their system. One of the main reasons I decided to go with the Supratek was that it included an on-board phono stage. I figured this would allow me to get rid of my Linn Linto phono stage. I also needed (or wanted) five inputs. I’ve owned the Linto for over 10 years and it has sounded excellent. I haven’t had the time or motivation to do a hard-core side-by-side comparison of the Linto with the Supratek LCR phono stage yet, but I think the Supratek sounds a lot better. I just hear a lot more information coming off the records. I suppose that’s a preliminary opinion. BTW, my Linto is a 25th anniversary model, so it’s getting a bit old, and I had to have it serviced last year. Linn no longer supports the product but the Seattle authorized Linn technician took it on and performed a service, replacing all faulty parts with more highly spec’d components. I know I’m rambling here but please bear with me. I’ve started to write this review several times before and those earlier versions have somehow vanished into thin air on the internet. Mick was an absolute gem to work with. The preamp is beautiful to look at. It comes across as a truly unique, bespoke product. It is not a standard “closed box” preamp, though if you are considering either a Don Sachs or Supratek product you’re probably most interested in the sound, reliability and value. The sound: The first piece I played through the system was Shawn Colvin’s excellent 1994 release “Cover Girl”. I’ve listened to this cd countless times. Previously I thought I understood the lyrics. I now know I was wrong, because now I can clearly and easily hear them and know that previously my mind had been “filling in the blanks” to make sense of what it was hearing. I could go on and on about this cd but I’ll turn my attention to the second cd I played over they system – Pieces of Africa, by the Kronos Quartet. This is a wonderful 1992 release and the biggest difference through the Supratek was the incredible sense of cohesion of the quartet. Yes, the soundstage was huge, and each player clearly occupied a location within that soundstage. But this was merely a bonus, because the biggest delight was in understanding how the ensemble members were interacting and influencing each other. Amazing and wonderful to hear. Next up was the 2017 Rhino Records “Summer of Love” reissue of Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks album. Holy smokes. Now I can understand why hardcore fans and collectors love this album and pay big money for original pressings. I have no basis for comparing the Rhino pressing to any others, but I will say that the recording is very good to my ears and the pressing seemed to leave nothing out. If you haven’t heard it yet, I encourage you to seek out the soundtrack to the movie “The Old Man and the Gun”. The press seemed to make a big deal out of the fact that this is apparently Robert Redford’s last movie. But the soundtrack is a hidden gem, a small group jazz release that is beautifully written, performed and recorded. The sound via the Supratek was nothing less than superlative. Update, about four weeks in – The preamp has continued to get better, more opened up, so to speak. The audio writer, Harvey Rosenberg, coined a word – “whole-osity” to try to capture the way superlative audio equipment conveys music. When discussing the work of Nobu Shishido he said that his artistic intent was “to take us to a musical territory that is so refined that there is no conventional language that can describe it....this is the job of the audio artisan...to inspire us to explore the ineffable”. When I incorporated the Supratek Cortese into my system I felt that I was having the same kind of experience. The phono stage is amazing. Yes, I know my LP12 with Ittok is not really considered “high end” nowadays. There are numerous tables out there which are more highly regarded. In spite of the limitations of the Linn, the LCR phono stage extracts every ounce of music from the signal and conveys it so that the performer’s artistic intent is clearly conveyed. Detail, musical nuance, artistic choices, cohesion, the unity of an ensemble and so forth are beautifully conveyed. The line stage is similarly accomplished. Many musical pieces I previously thought simply boring or annoying have been transformed into something that holds my interest. While the accuracy and “hear-through” nature of the preamp enables the listener to “hear the hand” of the producer and recording engineer it doesn’t detract from the artistry of the performer. I’m not someone who switches equipment into and out of my system very often. I’ve owned my humble LP12 for nearly 30 years, my ESL63 speakers for five, my Naim CD 3.5 for more fifteen, and so on. I’ve seldom purchased new. Every piece of equipment I’ve owned has provided great long-term satisfaction. The Supratek is exceeding every prior experience and every expectation I had. I can’t envision any situation in which I’d replace it. It’s very good. |
Hard to believe this thread is 17 years old, Hope I dont upset anyone by posting here, but just to let all know that Generation 3 of the Supratek preamps are now being built . Its the result of 30 years of design and essentially I went back over the many hundreds, possibly thousand designs over that period and had a good look at what worked best and incorporated it a design that isn't exactly new, and isn't old. Its still state of the art tube design, but centred squarely on sound. In a nut shell , Gen 3 is wider, deeper, louder and quieter. Wider and deeper because of even more 3D quality, still the renown Supratek sound but even more engaging. Louder because of the explosive dynamics. Quieter , and really proud of this, perhaps the lowest noise tube preamps out there. Certainly the moving coil phono section, which is capable of 0.1mV MC's is the quietest active tube phono with noise floor well below the vinyl noise. One of my recent customers has a famous $30,000 phono only stage , that requires a step up, and he says the Cortese is quieter. I'm also proud of , that in addition to a continued reputation for fine sound the Suprateks have proven to be reliable and trouble free. I recently had a 2003 model back for a tune up, and pleased to see that it was functioning in near new sound quality . The 2019 Gen 3 models are even better , I've built a lot of preamps since then, and learnt a lot over the years. They will still be keeping people very happy in 2036! Its a bit unfortunate that its still the case that so many audio guys dont realize how much effect a good tube preamp can have on a system. They tell me a Supratek does amazing things to Magico speakers, but I've yet to hear any system that didn't have a big jump in musicality and engagement from a competent tube preamp. There's a couple of new Supratek preamps for sale on Audiogon at the moment, do a search. They are incredible value for what you get, I think I've always sold the Suprateks for far less than what they should retail for, but I never could bring myself to price out of the reach of "normal" people. Its always been about the love of music and doing the best I can to spread that around. www.supratek.com.au www.supratekaudio.blogspot.com.au |
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I hear you Ralph, whatever "floats" a boat in the scheme of a specific business model. Nick's designs seem ever evolving from one idea to the next. I like that approach, kind of, but the problem is there is no definitive end, just a continuing work in progress ever evolving. I came to this conclusion when i couldn't obtain a schematic in spite of repeated requests. Plenty of passion and value regardless especially for the diy crowd, at least it used to be. Whatever the next iteration of Supratek, Mick has my warmest regard and a sincere hope for future sucess. His passion is unquestioned, at least by me. |
