Preamp Deal of the Century

About a year and a half ago (or so), I emailed Mick and asked him what upgrades he had done to the Chardonnay. He told me that the biggest upgrade he had made was switching to Auricap capacitors. He told me which two caps would make the biggest difference to change in my pre and I switched them for Auricaps. Noticeable improvement.

Well, I have been hankering to try Mundorf Silver Supremes in the Auricap position for at least six months. Well, I finally put them in this week. &%*#@$$! What a difference.

The Mundorfs simply blew the Auricaps away. There was a nice improvement when I put the Auricaps in, but to say there is an improvement with the Mundorfs is an understatement. These caps sound like a component upgrade!

The 3D palpability is greatly increased, great clarity overall, turned my subwoofer down due to increase in bass resolution, considerably deeper soundstage and greater separation of instruments. One of the best changes I have ever made.

Some time ago, I bypassed the selector switch and I am now going straight from the CD input to a DACT (highly recommended). The DACT and the straight input made a big difference in clarity. The Mundorfs made a bigger difference everywhere! The music just flows now.

I highly recommend taking 30 minutes to change a couple of caps if you are so inclined. My Chardonnay doesn't even sound like the same pre.

Ecclectique,
Yes PX4 direct heated triodes plus 76 in place of the standard 6SN7 (huge difference) and a few other minor tweaks. It is the only Grange of its kind in the world.
Audio has been a hobby of mine for 42+ years and words cannot describe the sound but perhaps this does:

(UFB)2
Gotta go and listen

Hi Fiddler. I have an order in for the welbourne labs attenuator,unfortunately they are in a back order position at present. Anyone tried it in a supratek yet? Thanks for the tip on the Mundorfs.

Ecclectique:

"I have saved the best for last as rewiring the tube socket is in order here to accomodate the 7193! The 7193 triode is a strange looking octal tube with plate and grid caps on the the top of the glass. These are electrically equivalent to a 6j5 single triode or 1/2 of a 6sn7. They were munufactured by RCA, NU, kenrad and tungsol as far back as the early 1930's.Many were used in old Juke boxes in their day as well as some early 50's tv sets. This tube just stomps on any 6sn7! Simply said.... there is no going back once you hear it. It's like comparing a telefunken ecc803 to a ge 12ax7, or a we350b to a 6L6. Halographic like no other,dead quiet,microphonics are non existant, super liquidity with incredible clarity,a silky sweet top end that floats into your room,the bass energy and drive of the kenrad vt-231 but far crisper and 3 times as tight. I use the cortese in my main system with my very efficient Tannoy Westminster's driven by VAC pa-90 monos employing the genelex kt-77 output tube. With the 6sn7's in the preamp I have very little room for play with the volume control whereby a single 6j5 is perfect for my application. I have unsoldered the other socket whereby I use only 1 6j5/channel."

You really got my attention with this post.

I have the gain on the "low" setting on my Chardonnay and I still can't turn the volume up past 9 o'clock. I would love detailed info on how to convert my Supratek to use the 7193.

I would appreciate any feedback you have time to provide.

Hi Fiddler. To employ the 7193 in the chardonnay one would have to drill a hole beside each tube socket to accommodate the wiring to the caps . Probably not so good if you ever wanted to sell it. I run my wiring up through the extra tube socket of my cortese as mine is configured for a pair of single triodes/channel as opposed to the single socket dual triode 6sn7 versions . Another way would be to run the extra wiring down from the bottom of the chassis and up the sides if you want to give it a try.The good thing here is the operating points of this family of single triodes [6j5,6c5,6p5,2c22,7193 etc] are the same as the 6sn7 whereby no modifications are necessary to the circuit of the 6sn7 based suprateks. Perhaps you might want to try a 6j5, 6c5, or the 6p5 first as they don't require the grid caps, the wiring change is relatively very simple and would certainly allow you a lot more flexibilty with your gain. The round plate versions of the 6j5 and 6p5 vacuum tubes as well as the 6c5 meshplates sound better than all of my 6sn7's. Trying a few of them first will certainly allow you to hear the voice of this tube family. As mentioned,the 7193 and the 2c22 need a pair of top caps per tube. These top caps a very difficult to source nowadays and it is imperative that they fit snuggly on the contacts of the tube. Not recommended for those with children or pets. You are more than welcome to email me off line for more imfo.