Preamp better than Cortese?

Glreno - I believe the Supratek you had was MY first Supratek and it was a horribly malfunctioning and miswired unit from the factory. That particular pre had an interesting history as it was a unit (I asked Mick to make) with several MAJOR circuit and design mods. For whatever reason, the changes/mods were not executed correctly, several blunders were made and the result was a preamp that didn't work. Mick eventually sold on Audiogon to a member who formerly owned a Wyetech Opal (I think you'll know who I mean) and in turn, that person I believe re-sold on Audiogon within a few days....

This particular unit was unique in that it was Piano Black, with Chrome top and gold knobs.

Anyhow, I feel its not exactly fair to draw any conclusion regarding the performance of a Supratek based on what one heard from the infamous "Gold Knobbed Chardonnay".

Wow! That's a real bombshell, Brian. You're saying that Mick sold an obviously defective product on A'gon, knowing that it was improperly manufactured (by himself)? That doesn't represent his product very well. "Horribly malfunctioning and miswired"? YIKES!! Was it dangerous? How many high-end manufacturers would sell an obviously defective product that they assembled, knowing that it's performance would be evaluated as the benchmark for that product's capabilities by whomever happens to be the next unlucky owner? The more owners that have it (and there will be many if it sucks), the more bad opinions are created about the product. And all will be saying the same thing..."what's the big deal with these Supratek pre-amps?" I know I am. And so is Jeffga. High-end audio is a comparatively small market, and word spreads fast. I'm amazed that he would allow this to happen. Was this disclosed to Jeffga when Mick sold it to him? Why wasn't it shipped back for correction, as opposed to "dumping" it on A'gon? This could be the topic of a thread all by itself.

In effect I have had two Syrahs. One was an early unit; I believe one of the first three in the U.S. The other was that unit modified by John Tucker of Exemplar Audio. The modification came first because of one channel of the Syrah failing. It would have cost me $350 to have Mick repair it. After repair John talked me into making it parafeed with a active load on the output tube and then into using the 6N1P rather than the 6SN7. The modification has since been done on three other Syrahs. They become more dynamic and much quieter.

I have since bought the full blown Exemplar preamp which includes no phono stage and has a fully SS power supply. It surpasses the modified Syrah. I then got the H-Cat. As I have said before, the H-Cat makes even the best tube preamps sound tube like without sounding SS itself. But the awesome aspect of the H-Cat is sound staging. It recreates an image that must be very much like the actual recording session. There were some early problems with it, but it has performed flawlessly the last six months.

Glreno, good questions! And I agree with you.

When I ordered that preamp, I asked for it to be a single chassis unit with balanced output. These two "options" were not done right but they didn't cause a dangerous situation. No worries there.

To the best of my knowledge the faulty preamp was returned to Mick a while ago. Recently when I inquired about an upgrade of my Syrah, Mick suggested I return my preamp to him and not sell online since it too has a few factory errors. He informed me that he didn't want ANY MORE malfunctioning or mis-implemented preamps floating around out there.

Whatever the case, he seems to have learned a lesson.

I agree with Glreno that Brian's announcement will hurt Mick's reputation, and the value of all of us that currently own a Supratek preamp. My recently arrived Syrah is perfect and equals all of the excellent reviews here on Audiogon for build and sound quality.
I would encourage Mick to consider recalling the "bad" Cortese. In addition I recommend all Audiogon sellers to be honest about the condition of their equipment as it will then encourage more people into the high end market, which includes listening experimentation and resale of components. The component integrity of the high-end community is quickly noticed.