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

Thanks for the extra info @gryphongryph, ​​@jackd , and @jslateiv . I thought the copper might add shielding. High-end Japanese components often use copper lined chassis for this reason.

@jackd which Supratek do you find the D. Sachs closer to tonal balance wise?

Thanks,

Doug A

When I asked about a copper Cabernet last year Mick said he wasn’t offering those anymore because the scratch too easily. 

 

When you order remember that you can customize the preamp. It’s one of the advantages of a made to order item. I opted for a 6v/12v switch and an extra set of balanced outputs. I see someone else had theirs made to accept 8sn7 tubes. Others have decided to use 6j5 tubes instead. 6sn7 tubes have gotten so expensive it might be worthwhile to explore other options. 

 "When you order remember you can customize the preamp"

Yes and no lol....

last week I tried to upgrade the power supply on a Chardonnay order and Mick basically talked me out of it.

Between his saying the boutique caps, resistors and inductors can "feel good"

they really don't do that much to improve the sound, only "change it"....

also stressing the real magic in the design is in the "tube shunt regulator".

After this and more I gathered he may not have wanted to make the PS upgrade,

Im sure I could have insisted, but I decided to leave things alone.

I think it’s fair to say that Mick considers those more tweaks than anything else. I also understand his reasoning behind not wanting to change the sound of his product. He knows and understands how his products sound. When you make things sound different he doesn’t know what the end result will be. And to be fair, you don’t either! Lol. Once you get a feel for the sound you can always tweak it later on  

 

When I talk about customizing I’m talking about functional differences as opposed to circuit or design changes. Appearance, tube voltages, outputs, inputs, etc.