Preamp Deal of the Century

Maril ...just as a matter of interest, have you discussed your concerns with Mick Maloney? It seems strange that any Supratek piece should exhibit glare, it is not in the mien of valve gear to sound glarey. Quite the opposite really, valves are traditionally chosen for their smooth and musical presentation and it is usually the case for solid state equipment that glare needs to be controlled.

I know Mick Maloney personally and have owned five of his preamps over the last ten years - none have ever exhibited any glare (and my system is razor sharp! with Raven ribbons etc.). Mick is an analogue guy (loves vinyl and truthful music), his design philosophy majors on musicality above all else. I think he would be shocked to learn that someone thinks that one of his products sounds glarey.

In one of the earlier posts Opus88 describes the sound of horns as being perhaps bombastic or with emphasised upper mids on his Cortese. I would have thought this is how horns are *supposed* to sound, certainly when you are in front of live performance the trumpets and horns blare and blat at you with uncanny acoustic power! they do not sit in the backround ...

Is it feasible that you are actually hearing for the first time how these instruments *should* sound with all the attack and transients of the instruments intact, and perhaps you are being unnerved by the experience? Listening to Supratek gear may require a paradigm shift in both thinking and hearing??

Anyway, I'm just trying to be constructive and would suggest you send an email to Mick about all of this. The guy is very good to deal with and is a master of sonic tailoring, he can get your preamps to sound anyway you might like it ...

Regards,

Steve M.

Stevem1960,
Your points are very valid, and I did try to convince myself, that what I was hearing is the way actual instruments should sound like. But at times it simply was "too much".
You are very right about a possible need for a "paradigm shift in hearing and thinking". Just might not be that easy for some.
Actually I did contact Mick a few times, and he was very helpful trying to resolve "the problem".
At any rate, I've decided to give it another chance, and ordered Cortese and Mondeuse amps- delivery pending.
Will see.
I'm not so sure if Mick could change a sonic signature of the preamp, or at least he wasn't very enthusiastic when I asked.

Trust me, Mick *can* make a preamp sound anyway he likes( the man is a whiz and I've seen and heard it first hand), but I suppose its not possible to suggest these things because of the tyranny of distance. Be forwarned, the Cortese is at another level and will peel away even more layers to reveal and flesh out the music to the nth degree, I hope your speakers are up to it ...

Regards,

Steve.

I just wanted to respond to the well intended comments Stevem1960, who says, "...Opus88 describes the sound of horns...with emphasized upper mids on his Cortese. I would have thought this is how horns are *supposed* to sound.....It is feasible that you are actually hearing for the first time how these instruments *should* sound...and perhaps you are being unnerved by the experience ? " Unnerved ? Yes, that is true. How horns are supposed to sound ? You are partially correct. Horns are certainly capable of producing strident sounds when called for, however, I have been hearing blare at times in passages where I have never heard it in the same passages of these compositions performed live in symphony concerts. I also have heard these passages reproduced in my component system, prior to the introduction of the Cortese, WITHOUT the "supposed to sound" glare. I've heard horns and massed strings sound urgent, vibrant, assertive, ambient AND wonderfully musical and naturally flowing all at the same time. I was able to relax while simultaneously enjoying impressively dynamic and electrically alive transients, sometimes projected with a stunning sense of grandeur. I had that kind of musical reproduction in my sound system a number of years back, then lost it. I'm confident I will get it back again, and WITH the Cortese. A paradigm shift, in the usual sense, is not going to correct the issue I am dealing with, and I certainly will not tell myself that I need to change what my own ears are telling me. Maril555's point about trying to convince himself "...that what I was hearing is the way actual instruments should sound like...But at times it simply was 'too much'" is understood very well by me. Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that all recorded music is made possible by the utilization of a vast array of electronic equipment---capacitors, resistors, wires, etc., not to mention the manipulations by sound engineers during that recording process. AFTER all that, our home or studio components take over the job. Under such circumstances, neutrality or "correct" sound possibly might be somewhat illusive. And finally, there's the listener's own subjective preferences in terms of how HE wants the illusion of live music presented to him in his living or sound room. I hope I may regain the kind of illusion that pleases me.

Well said Opus88, a good description of the varying nature of recorded music vs. live performances. Sometimes I just can't understand what's going on in my system, it can be spot on one minute and then you fiddle with something and that illusive 'real' quality is gone - best not to fiddle when you feel the magic is in place!

My current pet annoyance is that no matter what I do, my humble $100 Marantz analogue FM tuner sounds nicer (more natural to my ears) than my $5,000 CD replay system with $2,000 worth of fancy cables attached to it. This shouldn't be the case when most audiophiles consider tuners (with their limited bandwidth) to be a secondary source?

With home audio its best to savour the good moments while they last and try to ignore irksome (perceived) problems ...hard to do I know, because of our pedantic male driven audiophile tendancies. Other than that, perhaps we just need to go see more live performances to remain grounded.

Regards,

Steve.