Hi Gang. Ongaku, thanks for the post. Sandro, congrats on your new supratek and I am sure you will enjoy the ride. EThifi, Have you spent much seat time with the preamp in the low gain setting? If it is loud at 9 oclock on the volume control, it leaves you with a very small window for adjusting the proper gain variations of many recordings...... WCmustang....While neither my syrah nor the cortese use the ecc88 in the phono stage, I do have an ARC sp-10 and the Klimo merlin in others systems. Both employ the ecc88/6dj8/69922 family of tubes and are very fine sounding high end preamps. I have also owned as well as repaired and modified many other preamps that have employed that family of tubes. There are some great ones, some good ones and a lot of mediocre tubes in that family. Many of the nos ecc88 family of tubes have a tendency to be somewhat microphonic and can also be noisey as well. The crop of currently manufactured tubes..... while most are quiet and void of microphonics,in my honest opinion; none are fit for use in any high resolution phono circuit and to my ears "just won't make music". The pre 1970's tubes from amperex, siemens,telefunken,mullard,valvo etc are light years better than post mid 70's and 80's examples,particulary the siemens made tubes. Further more:There are a ton of re-labelled examples floating around and have been for years.In my experience, the only modern tube of any consequence is the military version of the Soviet 6n23n or 6n23ev,infact... these are the quietest tubes in the family with the tightest triode sections as well.The post 1980 phillips ecg versions are hideous sounding. The 60's version white labell Holland made Amperex [d getter versions] are terrific as well as the US amperex versions. The pre-70's Siemens e88cc's were my favs in the Sp-10 and the klimo and preferred over the Telelies and the mullards. Both versions of the legendary CCA's from either siemens or telefunken are as good as it gets in this tube family however the late 70's examples are nowhere close sonically to the earlier examples. The early Valvos [pre 70's again] red labells are great as well. One may also use the e188cc's or 7308's as subs and all of them will handle a higher voltage and are geniune 10,000 hour tubes. JPMS, Thanks for your perspective on the px-4/300b supratek options. The dilema for me is, which one to sell if I decide to go with the Grange. I am leaning more toward selling the Syrah as my cortese is considerably better sounding and far more flexible in my system. I much preferr the sound of the nos round plate 6j5's over any of the 6sn7's. There are also many more single triode substitutes for the 6j5 .... like the many vintages of the 6p5's, 6c5's,6ad5's,6ae5's,and the fabulous 7193. Due to no real commercial demand for single triode octal tubes [yet anyway]all these tubes are dirt cheap, very plentiful, and many sound better than the dual triode 6sn7. To be candid here: My apprehension stems from having my doubts about whether the px4/300b version will outperform my cortese with the above mentioned nos tubes.
