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Supratek Owners Thread

Greetings All - 
It appears that the 26-million-plus view, multi-decade "Preamp Deal of the Century" Supratek thread has been removed. I'm not sure why, but suppose there must be a reasonable explanation.
In any case, on that thread I recently asked whether there might be interest in a "Supratek owners thread" and received some interest. 
The purpose of this thread is for Supratek owners to share the details of their system, ask questions, share information about any tube-rolling they have done, and so forth.
I'll kick us off here with a few details about my system -
ancient Linn LP12 with Ittok arm, Dynavector 17D3 cartridge into Cortese LCR phono stage
Power amp is a fully serviced Innersound Electrostatic amplifier
Quad ESL63 speakers (not USA monitors) or JBL 4430 studio monitors
Digital sources are immature and evolving - ancient Fostex CR300 cd player/burner
DacMagic 100 DAC
Nordost Blue Heaven 75ohm interconnect
Due to the fairly long lengths of speaker wire required in the new listening room, speaker wire is Belden 12 gauge wire designed for low-voltage outdoor lighting systems. 
Next steps - dedicated circuit, new power cords, new interconnects, new wires.
128x128markusthenaimnut
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cal3713's avatar
cal3713
1,421 posts
 
Congrats @tvad, looking forward to hearing the reports.

I just ordered a custom dht linestage from Radu Torta (shiny eyes/simplepleasuretubeamps) based on the eml 20a mesh tube and this circuit... https://www.bartola.co.uk/valves/2018/03/25/eml-20a-dht-preamp/.

Excited to try a dht after reading about their beautiful tonality for many years. Hope you love yours...
wig's avatar
wig
1,270 posts
 
Guys,

You are in for a treat! I have owned many small signal tube pre-amps but the DHT version is quite special... I chose a 2A3 DHT Pre from Purity Audio, Harmonia MKII V2 and selected this one as it has no cathode follower circuit that will diminish the beauty of the DHT.

Unbelievable transparency, realism and musicality...

Wig
cal3713's avatar
cal3713
1,421 posts
 
@wig Good to hear yet another pro-dht comment from a pair of trusted ears. Everything I've read has been very positive. My amplifiers (first watt f4s) are a simple circuit and only provide current gain and are therefore more influenced by the preamp sound than other designs. Fingers-crossed...
markusthenaimnut's avatar
markusthenaimnut OP
371 posts
 
I've made several recent changes to my system:
1 - picked up a used Audio Electronic Supply (AES) (Cary) SE-1 300b power amp. Hooked up to my 93dB sensitive JBL 4430s it sounds awesome. I've always been curious about the 300b bandwagon / sound and now I understand what all the fuss is about.
2 - picked up a new interconnect between my preamp and Quad 909 power amp. It is made using Gotham GAC 4/1 or 1/4 shielded wire or whatever (I hate these complicated names and don't want to take time to research back to Amazon, where I bought them). It is nicely burned in now and sounding very balanced. 
3 - the new interconnect has allowed me to insert my Morrow Audio SP4 speaker wires. Nice change.
4 - Cambridge Audio CXC transport feeding my MHDT Orchid DAC. 
5 - With the Garrard 401 I put together this summer I incorporated a VTAF (see Pete Riggle audio engineering for more on this). I'm now convinced that most people who review cartridges or criticize cartridges are... Well, let me say that correct VTA etc makes all the difference in the world. And unless that's dialed in - which takes a lot of time - then you're just not really hearing whatever cartridge accurately.
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