Preamp Deal of the Century

That last post sounds like a Troll, please ignore it!!

I have owned four Supratek preamps Syrah-Cortese-Cabernet-and-Grange over a period of ten years and NONE have failed. In fact the Cortese that I sold some 8 years ago is still going strong, owned by a musician type, used regularly, never repaired - even the original tubes have not been changed.

The innards are a bit messy due the hand built nature of the thing and point-to-point wiring in the pursuit of short signal paths. If you look at the way the wire is strongly twisted at the solder points, great care and time has been taken.

At the end of the day hard wired valve amps like the Suprateks will last ten times longer than flimsy heat exposed circuit boards.

Steve.

i've seen the internals of my chardonnay, malbecs, and current dual cabernet. true enough they do look messy, but every solder joint looked clean to me. further, all the wires felt "tight" in their positions and not flopping around inside the chassis.

apparently some people only want to see shiny pcb's with thick traces inside their gear. in my experience, the shortest most direct signal path sounds the best. my preamp is point to point wired and so is my amp. even my DAC has a short signal path / minimalist approach (47 labs shigaraki dac).

the other benefit of point to point wiring is it's relative ease of repair. now that supratek has closed up shop, we owners can still have our preamps/amps repaired by a skilled technician. we're not left out in the cold because an oem supratek pcb burned up.

Mint604,

I have owned a Supratek preamp for years with no trouble whatsoever. NO, I don't sit around staring at the wiring inside of it. I prefer to sit back and enjoy the beautiful music it produces. This is what make me happy. I hope sitting there staring at the inside of your Marantz 7C makes you happy.

Slowhand,

How is the 7193 conversion?

I'm curious, too. Do we have someone besides me running these tubes?
By the way, they sound fantastic with my "new" Infinity RSIIb speakers - the EMIT tweeters and EMIM midranges really deliver the clarity the 7193s are capable of.