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

@nymarty   gotcha,..  then in that case, if there is no noise when turning the vol. knob manually,..  I think what you are hearing is the motor/circuit noise creeping into the audio circuit when the motor is engaged,.. 

Mine does the same, scratching sound when using the remote, totally quiet when moving it manually.

@jslateiv  Thanks!   The noise makes me wonder if a better motorized pot would be an overall sonic improvement but not sure what to even change it to or how.  That little bit of noise is a worthwhile tradeoff for how good the preamp is. 

@gryphongryph Thanks!  Good to know it's the same on your preamp too.

In completely separate news, a 6SN7 died in the Chardonnay last night.  I was listening to music, heard a loud unpleasant sound from my right speaker and then the speaker went silent.  Swapped around amps and speakers just to troubleshoot that they were working fine and then started swapping tubes.  Visually, the tube looked fine, maybe a little dimmer than the other, but it was pretty dead sonically.  Had a nasty ozone-like smell to it.  Luckily, had a backup pair of tubes.   Have never experienced that before and it definitely surprised me.  

Any new production 6SN7 that anyone would recommend?   I'm running Sylvania GTB now and would like to try a new tube vs a potentially old "NOS."

@nymarty you can try loosening up the volume control and recentering it in the mounting hole. Other options are a DACT or Kozmo but I don't think you have room for mounting internally of you want remote volume.These volume controls are bigger than the original Alps which your pre amp came with.