When the Deal of the Century topic started back in 2002, I never imagined it would still be going in 2017.
I'm not surprised that I still love designing and building preamps though , its been my passion for nearly 30 years now, and I never tire of the thrill of firing up a new preamp.
A lot has happened since then, over 500 6SN7 preamps built, followed by the 6SN7/12B4A , the first commercially available DHT preamp- the 300B, followed by the multi use 300B/45/PX4 preamp, then the 101D , and finally the last DHT 4P1L model , and now back to the 6SN7 in a new and exciting design.
I stepped away from full time production in 2009 ,with an employment offer to good to refuse, but I continued to do custom preamps and development work, in conjunction with my friend Kevin Covi. In addition to the occasional service work when rarely needed.
We developed hundreds of designs, preamps, power amps, dacs and I built most of them, I wasn't active on the forums, but my soldering iron was hot, and there were some nice sounds coming from my listening room.
Now in late 2017 I have the best preamplifier design I've ever heard, anywhere. 5 years in the making, its based on the best of all the thousands of different circuit configurations I've used over the years, and is a preamp that does everything well .
Just as liquid and musical as the DHT preamps, without the quirkiness of microphonics etc. Very accurate, but highly enjoyable to listen to. I'm really proud of this baby and keen to get it out into the world.
The same beautiful looks with copper chassis in chrome and Jarrah wood. Same extraordinary value, spend 4 times more, get less.
Ive got a brand new workshop and listening room and now building state of the art preamps fulltime .
At the moment I'm just building the 6SN7 preamp in linestage and linestage with phono , with some stock available, and next year I'll be introducing an entry level preamp at under $2000.
And a stand-alone phono stage .
I'm doing a daily tube audio blog where I discuss all things tube , and phono, or whatever is interesting - something new each day.
www.supratekaudio.blogspot.comand my web site
www.supratek.com.au I'm looking forward to getting back into the audio world , meeting old and new friends, and contributing to this great passion we share.
