Preamp Deal of the Century

Uh... I ordered my first preamp with a home theater pass through (this was Mick's first attempt at doing this custom option)...Mick didn't quite get it right and as a result, my preamp was a bit flakey - and as I have learned recently, not up to the quality of the "stock" Supratek's.

Mick realized he made a mistake on the Cinema by-pass for my first preamp and made me another one. Again - there were problems with the by-pass. Mick did a completely different design but I haven't quite figured out how to use it - it doesn't work very well at all and honestly causes more problems than it was worth. I disconnected it myself because it was causing a buzzing sound - acting like an antenna. A local amplifier manufacturer is going to fix this for me & Mick has agreed to pay for the expense.

In all honesty - those who order Suprateks will be much better off buying stock units and having the extra stuff put on by someone else. Mick is too busy building these things to be troubled with working out the bugs on a design he has yet to think out completely. This will make itself evident when you receive your "custom" Supratek.

While the Cinema By-Pass feature seems to be very attractive - it truly isn't all that much different than plugging the preamp outputs of your home theater reciever directly into a pair of the Supratek inputs - setting the volume to 12 o'clock and turning the selector knob to the desired input. Use your processor/receiver to adjust the volume.

Thanks a lot for the info Bwhite, I will email Mick and cancel the pass thru modification.
If I remember correctly I read on another thread that you used to have an EMC-1, how does it sound with the Supratek?

thanks again,

Rmml - you're welcome. You might talk to Mick about it. He is pretty stubborn and may try to do the Cinema By-Pass anyway. For instance. My first preamp was ordered with XLR outputs & Mick put on the wrong connectors (he put the input side of an XLR on the preamp to be used as outputs). I questioned him about this and he said that is how he always thought they worked.... Then.. for my second preamp, Mick insisted to put XLR's on. I told him NO!!! Not if it was going to be a problem.

The day my second preamp showed up, it had the same type (wrong) XLR connectors on it too.

I was kinda pissed off about that.

What I have learned from my dealings with Mick is that he is very capable designer/builder. His product is world class but when you deviate from the original design, there can be issues. The Cinema By-Pass is something that should be very simple but for whatever reason, I don't think Mick uses Home Theater much and therefore doesn't understand exactly what we're looking for when we ask for that option.

I had sold my EMC-1 MkII a few months before I got the Supratek. From my experience, the two units would work very well together.

Smw30yahoocom - The preamp does not come stock with a remote volume control. But it can be ordered. This is a GOOD OPTION. On my first preamp from Mick, he implemented the remote flawlessly!!! The second time around it had a few issues which turned out to be bad boards.

Mick uses the motorized ALPS potentiometers which run smooth and dead quiet.

A local person is working to get my remote control fixed - he had to order a board from Italy to do it. I will report once the work is done.