Preamp Deal of the Century

Rmml - you're welcome. You might talk to Mick about it. He is pretty stubborn and may try to do the Cinema By-Pass anyway. For instance. My first preamp was ordered with XLR outputs & Mick put on the wrong connectors (he put the input side of an XLR on the preamp to be used as outputs). I questioned him about this and he said that is how he always thought they worked.... Then.. for my second preamp, Mick insisted to put XLR's on. I told him NO!!! Not if it was going to be a problem.

The day my second preamp showed up, it had the same type (wrong) XLR connectors on it too.

I was kinda pissed off about that.

What I have learned from my dealings with Mick is that he is very capable designer/builder. His product is world class but when you deviate from the original design, there can be issues. The Cinema By-Pass is something that should be very simple but for whatever reason, I don't think Mick uses Home Theater much and therefore doesn't understand exactly what we're looking for when we ask for that option.

I had sold my EMC-1 MkII a few months before I got the Supratek. From my experience, the two units would work very well together.

Smw30yahoocom - The preamp does not come stock with a remote volume control. But it can be ordered. This is a GOOD OPTION. On my first preamp from Mick, he implemented the remote flawlessly!!! The second time around it had a few issues which turned out to be bad boards.

Mick uses the motorized ALPS potentiometers which run smooth and dead quiet.

A local person is working to get my remote control fixed - he had to order a board from Italy to do it. I will report once the work is done.

I saw a lot comments about "Deal of the Century". I am very impressed the advertisment. I don't plan to live a Century and only need a equipment for the next 20 years to enjoy some of the music that I like. I have tried to find a proper pre-amp to work well with my current ARC VT-100 and Aerial 10T Speaker for a few weeks. After some research with no upgrade at later time in mind, I came up four pre-amp:
ARC SP-11 MK2, ARC LS-5 MK2+PH3SE, BAT 75SE+ARC PH3SE, ARC SP-16(the newest) but was depressed the news about ARC is looking someone to take over. Anyone who is working on computer industry will fully understand my major concern. Does anyone have some experience on these pre-amp? Is supratek work better than these pre-amp on my current system? I know many of your guys are expert on this subject and willing to take your advice but I still did not see any of hard evidence about how good supratek is such as the equipment review from stereophile. Bwhite, thanks for bringing up the problems that you had with Mike. At least, I know this is not a perfect world. By thw way, I am in the process of ordering one from Mike. Your comments on my audio environments, will be greatly appreciated.

I'm confused after reading the above posts does this pre come single ended only or can you get it balanced?

Thanks

The preamp comes in single ended ONLY! However Mick will agree to providing XLR outputs (whether it is truly balanced output I do not know - and doubt it). In my experience, Mick does not know which XLR connectors should be used on the OUTPUT side because in my two preamps (and a friends) Mick used the INPUT side connectors as the output...