Preamp Deal of the Century

Well let's just hope that Mick can keep up with it all. Very ambitious for a one man shop. I am also very intrigued by what I have read here and elsewhere. I am damn near ready to order the Syrah and I don't mind waiting 3 months but...what is this business about quality control problems, is it prevelant or just isolated? Bwhite, you have been the eloquent spokesman on this thread, could you fill us in on the details?

Fist of all, buying a Supratek is not like buying a product from a "big name" manufacturer where you can expect that every unit produced will be identical and in most respects "flawless" visually. Mick builds each item individually and therefore each of his creations is in some ways unique. Things like sloppy paint jobs (a couple drips) on the piano black finish - or blotches in the varnish have been in my experience, standard equipment. Miscellaneous problems with wiring and solering can also be a part of the product you receive. Chips in the paint from a rough delivery are likely as well.

Mick being a "One Man Shop" is really no excuse for these issues. If anything, his quality should be BETTER as a result. NOT worse!!

Keep in mind that since I received my second preamp, Mick made a lot of changes in the ways he does things. Mick will pay for the repair of your preamps if they are not electrically sound but I don't know what he does if the finish is not up to your expectations. Just know that even with paint drips and smudges, the Supratek is still one of the prettiest preamps available in the world today.

Also, Mick resides in a highly unpopulated area in Western Australia which has nearly no RFI/EMI. When your Supratek with its unsheilded wire arrives in a big US city you may experience buzzing. Your Supratek will not be as quiet when idle as any mainstream electronic gear. This is not the Supratek's strong point. Between it and the NOS tubes you're likely to use with it, you must expect at the very least some microphonics and tube "hiss".

Adding any aftermarket options will cause problems for Mick. He has no way of testing some of the crazy things we consumers come up with but will most likely attempt to do them for you as a service - because he isn't making much money on each unit and needs the business!

Bwhite - The fact that the units are NOT identical and have the flavor of being individually built is very appealing to me. The problem I don't want to have is being on the receiving end of a product made the other side of the world with internal quality problems because of pressure by the designer to meet schedules.

Quality Control can become a big issue, I've seen it happen to many small businesses when they get stretched too thin. I will speak with Mick about this concern. Thank you and the others so much for your excellent comments and insight on this company.

Tubegroover - in the off chance that you have internal quality problems with the unit, it can easily be fixed by anyone with electronics and soldering experience. In fact, I think my preamp is much better after going to a repair shop. The Engineer (Scott Frankland of Wavestream Kinetics) who worked on my preamp made some very good modifications to my preamp which were simple but effective.

Thinks like separating the internal wires better, sheilding a few of the non-critial wires, putting the unit on a scope and fine tuning the Left and Right gain, etc really made a BIG difference in overall performance. Having Scott look at my preamp and do the fine tuning cost a whopping $50 bucks but the return was outstanding. I would recommend owners of Supratek products take them to someone who has built amps/preamps professionally to learn if there are any quick and dirty ways to improve the performance.

I think Mick's recent "extended" schedule for delivery represents his commitment to increasing the quality of his products. When I ordered the preamp, Mick was turning these out in less than 2 weeks. That has changed signifcantly of late and I expect his more current products are higher in initial quality as a result.

Bwhite, do you think that Scott would mind being the U.S. "point man" for mods of these units? I know he has a business of his own to tend, but he seems to be very knowledgable and reasonable (a combination of traits difficult to find these days). Certainly any of us considering this product would not begrudge the relatively small tariff for optimizing this product.

I'd be a little more comfortable knowing that someone's around who's not afraid to (apologies to whoever I'm plagarizing) stick his fingers into something to find out what going on.