Preamp Deal of the Century

Maril, if I criticized you unfairly at any point for your characterization of your Supratek, my apologies.

Prior to my most recent posts, I never suspected that the glare I heard in my system was from my Supratek. I assumed based on the posts of another member here who complained of glare from his Berning that the glare I was hearing was coming from my ZH270 also. He sold his Berning due to this reported glare.

I continued to chase the glare in my Berning with tube changes, power cords, isolation efforts, etc. all to no avail only to discover my Berning wasn't the source of any glare.

The good news is the glare from the bottom plate support of the Supratek was easily remedied and I can't believe the difference. Listening for hours is a pure joy now. The frustration that I experienced trying to the rememdy problem is now just a forgotten memory (ooops, what am I thinking - my memory isn't longer than 20 seconds anyway :)

(Oh, and one more thing. Now I realize that by installing the DACT attenuator and the V-Caps I only exacerbated the glare since my Chardonnay became much more transparent, open and detailed with the modifications.) Now that glare is no longer a problem, I consider the DACT and V-Caps a major benefit with the additional clarity and detail they impart.

Fiddler,
I appreciate your statement, and actually I'n not surprized about your isolation findings, makes perfect sense to me.
Hopefully, I'm gonna get a Supratek phonostage , Mick is building for me, and I'll try your method.

Concerning the glare... I have never heard of it... I am not using cones, just a granite plinth under my sauvignon, and I use Kimber Select 1036 interconnects in my system. I think interconnects are the most important upgrade and you really need top of the class with supratek components to let them perform without compromises. After going to Kimber I couldn't believe that my system could sound that transparent and yet sweet... Its like there is a small brain in there that determines which element to make sweet (vocals) and which to make bright (cymbals). I cant find any sound signature... Everything depends on the source and the recording mastering. I really love my sauvignon :)

I have found that the Zu Varial interconnects and Zu Ibis speaker cables work very well with my Chenin. I have no glare whatsoever, but my Chenin is modded to use 2C22 tubes instead of the often microphonic 6SN7. The 2C22s have no detectable microphonics whatsoever, you can tap on them, rattle the shelf ... nothing. I think microphonics may be a big reason for the glare sometimes heard in systems using 6SN7 tubes, hence the reason improved isolation has such an effect.

Ait - you have a good point - although my experience is that isolation under everything - tubes and SS - (even power supplies for TT motors) make a difference as do cables and power supplies - when you drop in the new cable and it is bright ( but more detailed )it may well be isolation or power supply filtering that is needed to solve it rather than another cable - none of us will will ong enough to try out all the permuations of products on offer but it does keep you off the streets - I have ended up with ball bearings for isolation, ribbon cable and actively sheilded power cables with bybees + v caps and alps RK50 pot on cortese - it all sounds pretty good but who knows if another approach would not sound better

Cheers