Preamp Deal of the Century

Hi Gang. Slowhand, Congrats on the new toy. Yeah, the run in time is always a major pain in the butt for most any new equipment, particularly hardwired vacuum tubed stuff.Now that Mick is using the Mundorf capacitors in the suprateks will only prolong the exercise to be sure, not to mention all the transformer coupling employed in the circuit design. Any capacitor employed in the signal path of any given audio circuit will need a steady diet of a modulated frequency to fully open up. Oil filled types in particular are notorious for an excessively long burn time. The Jensen oils,Audionote oils and the Mundorf supreme caps all take at least several hundred hours to completely open up the window. The Mundorf supreme's midrange is magical, incredibly clear and concise right out of the box. With more run in time you will find that window opens larger and larger in both the vertical and horizontal plane.That incredible focus and resolution of the midband will slowly expand in both directions of frequency. The bass frequencies will take the longest to fully open up but when they do they are incredibly resolved.The speed,the pitch, the attack and the decay of bass instruments per sey, percussive bass in particular....cello, stand up bass,plucked bass etc are all just so well resolved it's incredible and almost to good to be true. Moving up in frequency from the midband....brand new the Mundorf's are already very extended,smooth and articulate. It's difficult to imagine and even harder to explain because it's not just so much as reproducing the notes here but the mundorf's ability to capture the sound of silence, the air and the atmasphere surrounding the notes.The space between two or more instruments playing together in the same frequency domain whereby one can clearly focus on each of the musicians instruments as well as ascertain the distance in perspective between them. The Mundorf supremes uncanny ability to clearly focus at both frequency extremes is in a class all by itself in my opinion. You guy's may want to try them in your speaker crossovers well. The Tannoy Westminsters use high quality film caps and resistors in their crossovers to begin with but I was completely floored at what the Mundorf supremes did for them.It's not so much a tonal balance thing here, but that subliminal space and timing thing I was alluding to earlier. The only down side here is that they take even longer to run in when used in a crossover! For those that are impatient or don't like to hear the ongoing change while running in capacitors, Get yourself a copy of the George Cardas frequency sweep LP and let it play for a day or two on each track of the record, your good to go in about 10 days. For those that don't use a phono stage... theres the denson cd, it's basically the same thing, just put it on repeat when your away from your rig, You don't need even need to turn your amp on for this exercise unless your using them in your speaker crossovers. Tom.... If you can't find a copy I can send you mine. cheers

Hey Steve. Thanks for the offer sir, as I may just take you up on that one, however I am sitting on the fence for the time being until I can get some seat time in with the stepped ladder potentiometer I have custom ordered for the cortese. Should be installed in another week.

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David,
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Thanks for the detailed explanation of the Mundorf's performance.
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Is is possible to break-in the Mundorf's before putting them in one's system ?
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Rgds,
Larry
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Thanks for the offer David. I have a friend here in town that has the cardas sweep record. I kind of like hearing the changes in the sound as the Cortese breaks in, so I guess I will let it break in on it's own. It will take longer, but that is ok. Thanks also for the explanation of the Mundorf Supremes. Sounds like I have a lot to look forward to.

Hello Larry,

I am enjoying the Cortese very much. The power supply on the Cortese gets much hotter than the power supply on the Syrah. It is also much heavier. Mick says I should be able to use the Bendix 6106 in the Cortese, but he said ther have been a couple of failures. I am not ready to put in NOS tubes yet, but I sure hope I can use the 6106.

Hi Larry.I guess it would be similiar to a flower-lover observing a rose bud as it opens up into a beautiful flower. Perhaps some people may find the ritual of capacitor run-in an enlightning or rewarding experience. Once is more than enough for me thank you very much, though it really is amazing to hear it morph out. The quickest way I know of, is to wire the capacitor in series with an 8 ohm resistor and then hook them across the speaker terminals of any old receiver/ amplifier.The 8 ohm resistor is basically a dummy load for the amplifier to see.Leave it on for 4 or 5 days dialed in to a radio station and your good to go. If you have a spare cd player you can simply run it in repeat mode with a selection of music containing an extended bandwidth. I use the Denson "frequency sweep cd" as it contains a full scale sweep that covers every octave. Warning!!!you certainly wouldn't want to listen to it though.