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

@isaacc7 Oh well I think I will start out with traditional 6sn7 tubes.  I really don’t want to mess around with adapters starting out.  Mick included a 40-50’s Radiotron 6SN7gt pair made in Australia.  I have pairs of Rca grey glass 6SN7gt’s, Rca 6SN7gta’s and Raytheon 6SN7gtb’s from the 50’ s to start out. Power tubes I have a selection of 6L6’s to try as well.  Should be fun.  Thanks for your suggestions.

Regarding the use of adapters - In the owners manual Mick cautions against "excessive" tube rolling, because it can cause the sockets to eventually lose some of their grip.

Hence I use socket savers.

In my DHT i'm using Cossor WE300b tubes which are a major upgrade over the stock Psvane tubes. For a rectifier tube i'm using a Phillips 5R4GYS immediate improvement over the JJ GZ34, the music is cleaner with an added layer of textures presenting a very real soundstage. The 6SN7's have made the least impact as to sound maybe because of their use as driver tubes, i'm using original Bad Boy's. The Cossor WE300b's are very close in sound to original WE 300b's and for the price are hard to beat i bought mine from VKmusic. The biggest surprise was the 5R4GYS rectifier tube which was a major improvement in sound right from the beginning.

Thanks everybody on this thread for sharing your experience with Supratek/Mick. It was extremely useful to me making my decision.

I just placed an order for Cortese LCR preamp/phono.

I cant wait to receive and hear this preamp. It was go against my current pre - EAR Yoshino 868PL preamp so stakes are somewhat high already.

I will share my feedback..in few months once I receive it..

Cheers.

Finally set up my Cabernet 6SN7 on my main system. I am using an LSA Warp 1 class D amp while I wait for my Decware Torri to be built in a few months. Sounds fantastic. I did order a Revelation Audio Labs umbilical cord and ii is a nice addition to Mick’s stock cord. First impression of the cords prior to full break-in is Mick’s sound more warm with larger soundstage like tubes and Rev Audio’s sounds bright/ detailed more like solid state. Any input on how these cords settle in?

It’s been interesting working with Mick he’s a great guy. Ordered a Chardonnay but he was having transformer parts delay so he offered a Cab at a discount instead to avoid an extended delay. Then he was also having difficulty getting tubes so he sub’d some 40-50’s Aussie 6SN7’s. One tested low on arrival and failed badly the second time I used it. The chassis serial number labels had Chardonnay listed as the model and I had to ask Mick to send me new labels which he forgot about until I asked a second time. None of these are a problem for me I understand all the supply chain issues and he is quite busy dealing with it all. He is an accommodating guy of his word and aims to please. One last etiquette question…should I ask Mick for replacement 6SN7 tubes? He didn’t offer when I told him the tube failed? I wasn’t going to ask and just chalk it up as bad luck but wondered how others would respond. Thanks