Hi,
As a former owner of a Supratek Syrah and a current owner of a Herron VTSP1A/166 I would say that first of all they're both great preamps. The strengths of the Supratek were bloominess, warmth, and organic sound, while to me the Herron excelled at quiet, transparency, and "prat". They're both among the better preamps on the market, I personally preferred the Herron, others may feel differently. The best thing to do is somehow work out a way to audition both of them, and the Cary as well. I've never heard the Cary, but I did previously own Cary 300B Signature monos and I will say that the folks at Cary obviously know what they're doing, those were great sounding amps! Anyway I probably confused you more than I helped, but the good news is you're faced with a pretty fun problem to investigate, there's a lot of great gear out there, don't take any of this too seriously and have fun!
As a former owner of a Supratek Syrah and a current owner of a Herron VTSP1A/166 I would say that first of all they're both great preamps. The strengths of the Supratek were bloominess, warmth, and organic sound, while to me the Herron excelled at quiet, transparency, and "prat". They're both among the better preamps on the market, I personally preferred the Herron, others may feel differently. The best thing to do is somehow work out a way to audition both of them, and the Cary as well. I've never heard the Cary, but I did previously own Cary 300B Signature monos and I will say that the folks at Cary obviously know what they're doing, those were great sounding amps! Anyway I probably confused you more than I helped, but the good news is you're faced with a pretty fun problem to investigate, there's a lot of great gear out there, don't take any of this too seriously and have fun!
