Preamp Deal of the Century

Asa, so let me get this straight.

A guy goes to sell his Chevy - so he should buy a Buick before a Cadillac and the Cadillac before a Mercedes and the Mercedes before a Porsche 911 Turbo...so, "his mind, can go way "deeper" through progressively receptive states, and such states, or their "allowing," necessarily requires a PROGRESSION of experience."

That is the biggest crock of baloney I have ever heard. Have you been reading Dianetics!

If we were talking about cloning humans it might be important to take baby steps to learn as much as one could along the way, but tubes ain't a life or death proposition.

Or if one was a tube "seller" it would be important to listen to as many tubes as you could to advise customers, but in your rebuttal here you are simply trying to defend your convoluted logic.

Had you taken the time to read Grannyring's posts more carefully before you decided to interject your "learning" dissertation, you would have realized that Grannyring is not trying to learn how to crawl. Take a look at his associated equipment, "Opus 21 CD player directly into my Parasound Halo JC1's monoblocks...Khorus X11 speakers which go down to 17hz." I don't think he is interested in half-assed tubes for his Supratek!

Once again your advice to Grannyring to seek some sort of "ethereal" (read: "other-worldly"....perfect context!) learning experience borders on the absurd given the context of his system and his early posts.

My recommendations to him were not about, "greed for the next experience; to get there faster and faster". Instead, my reply was based on reading Grannyring's early posts and trying to recommend the best choices of tubes to compliment his associated equipment.

Using your rationale I guess I should suggest to him that when he buys his Porsche 911 Turbo he should run it for a while on regular gas versus premium so he can, quote: " notice the difference, in quantitative terms and in qualitative terms, but not in qualitative terms TO THE DEGREE THAT MAY BE POSSIBLE without SUFFICIENT EXPERIENCE."

Asa, I appreciate your tenacity to defend your clearly untenable position, but let's move on.

Indeed let's move on, so for those of us that are contemplating purchase of a Supratek linestage, can anyone offer any observations on the relative performance among the following: Cabernet (latest production), Sauvignon (latest production), Sauvignon (older model) and Chardonnay. Keep it simple by just assessing the line stages or the line stage performance of their equivalent full-function counterparts (Grange, Cortese and Syrah respectively).

Linkster
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I would suggest that you get either a Grange, Cortese or Syrah rather than a line stage only Supratek pre. The incremental cost of getting a model with the phono stage included is very little compared to the value (many believe the phono stage to be one of the best phono stages available) you get. Having both stages should greatly help your resale / demand (not that you will want to sell it anytime soon). You will also be more than set if you get into vinyl someday.

I have a Cortese that is about a year old and I have not heard the Grange nor I have I heard any of Mick's new iterations that started coming out late last year.

I think that either Steve 1960 or Mick can give you and informed / honest opinion as to how much the newer models have improved the various aspects.

I would also like to hear from anyone that might have heard either the new Cortese or Grange releases and how they stack up against the older models.

It would also be great to hear how much of an improvement that the Grange is over the Cortese on both the line and phono sections.

Eccletique,

Any updates on the new NOS tubes used as regulators, which you believed will "hold it own with the esteemed WE 350b"

TJ

I now have a Cortese to A/B verses the Syrah. I am also lucky enough to have a CJ Premier 16LS MKII , on loan, to go head to head against the " highly praised" Supratek models.

Thus far I wish the Syrah had more body, foundation and overall weight to the music. The CJ beats the Syrah in these areas, but is not as transparent. The CJ throws a larger stage also. I am only listening to CD's thus far. I will test the Cortese and update all on my progress. The Syrah was built in mid 2001 and I am not sure of the age of the Costese. Inside I noticed it was tweeked by "someone" with vibration deadening sheets.Serial number is RL136.
I understand much of the outcome will be based on system and room matching.

Grannyring