Supratek Owners Thread


Greetings All - 
It appears that the 26-million-plus view, multi-decade "Preamp Deal of the Century" Supratek thread has been removed. I'm not sure why, but suppose there must be a reasonable explanation.
In any case, on that thread I recently asked whether there might be interest in a "Supratek owners thread" and received some interest. 
The purpose of this thread is for Supratek owners to share the details of their system, ask questions, share information about any tube-rolling they have done, and so forth.
I'll kick us off here with a few details about my system -
ancient Linn LP12 with Ittok arm, Dynavector 17D3 cartridge into Cortese LCR phono stage
Power amp is a fully serviced Innersound Electrostatic amplifier
Quad ESL63 speakers (not USA monitors) or JBL 4430 studio monitors
Digital sources are immature and evolving - ancient Fostex CR300 cd player/burner
DacMagic 100 DAC
Nordost Blue Heaven 75ohm interconnect
Due to the fairly long lengths of speaker wire required in the new listening room, speaker wire is Belden 12 gauge wire designed for low-voltage outdoor lighting systems. 
Next steps - dedicated circuit, new power cords, new interconnects, new wires.
128x128markusthenaimnut

@tksteingraber Nice Decware!  My speakers (Devore Fidelity Nines) can run on 20 watts but they seem to come alive with more power.  I'm using the Chardonnay now with 3 different amps -- Schiit Aegir (two running balanced as monoblocks), a Line Magnetic LM-34ia as power amp, and an old McCormack DNA-1.  All have their unique sound qualities but using balanced outputs from the Chardonnay to the Aegirs is by far the quietest pairing -- in that there's no noise at all coming from the speakers when not playing anything.  With any of the other amps running RCA cables, I get a little bit of noise.  Granted, you have to be right up to the speaker to hear the noise but it's there.  Adjusting gain doesn't seem to affect it at all. The music coming out of the amps with RCA connections is still great, though.  I'm curious about your time with the LSA Warp. I'm inclined to pair the Chardonnay with a solid state amp using balanced connectors.  

@sim_audio_nerd  Thanks!   That must be a really nice combo.  What speakers are you using?  And are you running balanced connectors between the Grange and Coda and have you compared that to RCA connectors?

Looking at this thread again, I noticed that I never posted a update on my Cabernet problems, the man to the rescue was @jslateiv 

He helped me find the problem by the pictures I had sent him, it seams two solder joints were not soldered at all, and because the wires used are very stiff it was not easy to spot, I had never soldered before, but with good help from jslativ, I was able to get it done, so now my gain control knob works perfectly.

So all is good, being able to adjust the gain has improved the sound somewhat as my power amp has a lot of input gain.

 

Just upgraded my Chardonnay with a new remote control. Nice heavy aluminum and just the 2 buttons I need. The remote Mick supplies is fine but this just has a nicer feel and no unnecessary buttons. Easy to program. Sounds better too. ;-)