There seems to be a consensus here: Today is the era of best tube amplification. And: some of he best stuff comes from artisan electronic designers. I just took delivery of a Supratek Grange phono-/pre-amp. I have not yet hooked it up because I am building a new vibration-attenuated instrument rack, and the concrete inside the tubes takes forever to cure. But the enthusiastic testimonials from Supratek users over the years had me pay attention. Communicating with the designer, Mick Maloney from New South Wales was free education of another level. This is an important point: today’s designers have so much more information at their hands compared to previous generations, that one can find new approaches to solving very basic problems such as SET linearity, source impedance matching, forsaking SUTs, etc. almost every year. I am currently a user of the "legendary" Sunvalley EQ1616D phono-pre, sporting a magnificent ELROG 274B rectifier tube: this was my first foray into tube territory, and I never looked back since. It will be for sale pretty soon, I guess ...
