Preamp Deal of the Century

Well, I've got my 6F6G(st)s and I have Ken-rad and Tungsol 6SN7s. Now if Mick gets me my replacement umbilical I can give them a whirl in my Syrah. Note- I had to have one of the 6F6s replaced. Plugged it into a small Dared mono that I have to start burning it in, walked out of the room to let it warm up, and came back to a cherry-red tube, with smoke coming out of the base!! No flames, but they were imminent. Got it unplugged, cooled off, and fired up the mono w/another tube set. It worked fine, but I am quite glad it wasn't my Syrah that got lightly toasted. Lesson learned, never leave a new tube unattended when firing it up the first time. Any tube can be damaged in transit.

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Slowhand
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We will hit another milestone when we get to March 23rd, which will make it 2 years ago since you first started this great thread. Congrats & Thanks to you for getting this going and making us all aware of Supratek and Mick’s incredible pre-amps.
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Best Regards Cello (Larry)

Hi again guys

Acording to the previous messages it seems that the 6F6G influences bass more than everything else. It gets deeper and stronger - correct? Well, I really do not need MORE bass. But TIGHTER bass would be much apreciated. Can you be a more specific on the bass improvement using 6F6G comparing to stock tubes and/or Tung-Sol 5881?

On 02-24-04 I asked this question and a couple more. I really need a word of advise here so I will ask again:

"For those who already tried the 6F6G I would like to know a bit more as for sound. How do they compare with (1) stock KT-66 and (2) Tung-Sol 5881 as for tight bass (less boomy)
sweet highs (less sibilant), emotional presentation (instead of clinical) and air"

Thank you very much.
Lisbon

Lisbon,

In my system I have found the Tung-sol 5881 to sound more on the warm side of bass. Good definition, but not the rock solid bass that you just feel in your gut. If I am using my Ken-rad's then I prefer the Tung-sol 5881's. I find the 6f6g's to be overkill with the Ken-rads, but with my Tung-sol round plates I love the 6f6g's! By the way, if you don't already have a copy or Brian Bromberg's CD "Wood", go out and get one. He plays a 300 year old upright bass that was made in Italy and with the 6f6g's the bass will rock your foundation. Man I love the hobby!

I got my cabernet yesterday. Mick shipped on the 4th and I got it on the 8th, so that was pretty fast delivery. Let me tell you just a bit about the cabernet. It is the linestage only version of the grange. The normal tube compliment is 6j5, 101D, 5881, and gz34. Note that the 6j5 is a single triode tube and one half of a 6sn7. Because I have so many 6sn7's, I asked Mick to wire my cabernet for the 6sn7. It only uses one triode in the 6sn7 but the left and right sockets are wired to use different triodes. So I can swap 6sn7 tubes between sockets to make sure that each triode in a tube can be used. Best I can tell there are only 2 gain stages in the Cabernet and it does not invert phase unless you do it with a phase switch

The other signal tube is the 101D. Mick ships the preamp with the TJ101D, this tube has a mesh plate structure that is built kind of like shredded wheat cereal. The TJ101D has 2 getters which are perpendicular to the mesh structure. Overall the TJ101D construction looks very good. Besides the tennis-ball shape and the pinout it doesn't bare a lot of physical similarity to the WE101D. Electrically the TJ101D may be very similar to the WE101D but construction-wise it looks like its own tube design instead of a copy.

The power supply seems to weigh about 40lbs by itself. This preamp has the rectifier and regulator tubes in the power-supply. The Sauvignon I got from Mick last year only had the rectifier in the power supply. The preamp did not ship with a power cord. Not a big deal but those in the market to buy a Supratek preamp should plan on picking up a power cord also.

Mick is still shipping the same remote control with his preamps. Has anyone tried replacing this thing with one of those programmable universal remotes? You know the remotes that look like PDA's.

Last year Mick shipped the preamp and power supply together in one of those FedEx 25kg boxes. It was well packed then. This year Mick shipped the preamp and power supply seperately in their own 25kg boxes. They are really well packed now.

I prefer a minimalist design and my preamp configuration relfects that. There is only one set of inputs, rca and xlr outputs, volume control, balance control with a bypass switch, and a gain selector on the back of the preamp. Of course there is no source selector, no tape loop, no phase switch, no mono, no mute, etc.

I told Mick early on that I had bought 10 pair of NIB WE101D for use in the preamp. Mick builds the preamp to be auto-biasing and although he builds it for the TJ101D he made doubly certain that it would auto-bias with the WE101D also. He delayed shipping over a week to make certain it was right. I really appreciate that.

This preamp is supposed to have up to 30db of gain.
I have not had a chance to listen to the preamp yet. It will be a couple of weeks till I get to do that. I'll be sure to let everyone know how it sounds in the upcoming weeks.