Preamp Deal of the Century

The deal might be if it is in as new condition you won't be running the risk of having it damaged during shipping i.e. some monkey in Customs repacking it like a 9 year old stuffing his toy box as Mom is screaming "Have you cleaned your room yet?" OUCH!!

For a practically brand new piece that has a 6 month wait paying full retail or close isn't a bad deal, is it?

I can comment on one of these sales as I recently purchased a Cortese that was listed here. The seller had bought the Cortese back in August, waited 4 or 5 months for delivery, then spent some time comparing it to another (much more expensive) preamp in his system. He decided he liked the other one a little better and listed the Cortese here. I was happy to pay close to full price to avoid the wait and import duties, so the deal worked out well for both of us. I haven't spent a lot of time with it yet so I'm hesitant to comment on the sound, but my initial impression is that it's every bit as good as this thread leads you to believe.

I think the long lead-time involved in getting Suprateks just naturally leads to a few new ones being listed here. People find something else, or relocate, or downsize their system, etc. before the Supratek shows up. I doubt this implies anything negative about the quality or value of the product.

auido gears come and go, it is normal. same with Supratek.
I will be very pleased to hear some different perspective on this preamp,particularly from these people want to sell it. Group Think sometimes apply among audiophiles.

You guys are, of course, right. For myself, I know what I hear in the Supratek, but thought there might be some issues with system capatibility with some others out there, or some reliability issues arising as time goes on, or something better they heard, beyond the issues of the economics of our time (can anyone hear that sucking sound?) or our audiophile brethren's admittedly/notoriously fickle nature. Blips on the screen should be inquired of, I think. In any event, as you all have noted, nice resale.

The Supratek does require tube rolling to gain maximum sound. Perhaps the sellers have not experimented with the tubes, and when compared to other preamps( higher priced preamps) it sounds "lean". To current owners - do take the time to roll the tubes following the advise given in this thread. I am not sure about break-in time, however the action of the knob/contols did smooth-out after 3-4 months.