Hey, can we dust off this old thread? I'm about a month into my ownership of a new Gen. 3 Cortese with LCR phono stage. I've read a lot on the Preamp Deal of the Century thread, plus this one, and tried to research the state of Supratek tube-rolling circa 2019. I have reached out to Mick and he's basically advised me to spend my money on more music, that tube rolling nowadays will produce "different" sound but not necessarily better sound.
I've also read at least one post somewhere, in which a tube-rolling Supratek owner eventually came back around to preferring the stock tubes. Also, it should probably be noted that now, in 2019, there are fewer of the sought-after NOS tubes available, and they are much more expensive than they were 15 years ago, and there are multiple variants of new production 6SN7 tubes available, such as from Psvane, the Shuguang Black Treasure, the Northern Electrics, and so forth. I'll be purchasing a complete replacement set of "stock" tubes from Mick in the near future and that will help to set my mind at ease. But I can't help but be curious what the collective thinking is among the long-time Supratek owners who previously posted on this thread. Given the way things are in 2019, who is running what in their Supratek preamps?
I've also read at least one post somewhere, in which a tube-rolling Supratek owner eventually came back around to preferring the stock tubes. Also, it should probably be noted that now, in 2019, there are fewer of the sought-after NOS tubes available, and they are much more expensive than they were 15 years ago, and there are multiple variants of new production 6SN7 tubes available, such as from Psvane, the Shuguang Black Treasure, the Northern Electrics, and so forth. I'll be purchasing a complete replacement set of "stock" tubes from Mick in the near future and that will help to set my mind at ease. But I can't help but be curious what the collective thinking is among the long-time Supratek owners who previously posted on this thread. Given the way things are in 2019, who is running what in their Supratek preamps?