Preamp Deal of the Century

I have in my posession a vast array of tubes ranging from WE350B, Tung Sol round plates 6SN7 Black Glass, Ken Rad Black Glass VT-231, Sylvania JAN-CHS-VT231, Mullard GZ34, Sylvanis 6F6G, RCA VT-232 Grey Glass, Sylvaina 6SN7GT, Raytheon 6SN7-WGT, etc.... the list goes on and one.

All I can say is stop, step back, take a deep breath, and walk into the un-chartered territory that most of us have NOT known. It taken 3 years of owning a Supratek to get to this point. A complete round trip, back to where I started and the answer was sitting in my face as clear as daylight all along.

Other tubes may sound different, and yes they really sound different in my system, Each new tube inserted makes a difference. But at the end of the day the Supratek was optimised for a particular set of valves, yes folks, the ones included with the unit, when the unit arrived at your door step and you had that big grin on your face. When you opened the Federal Express box(s) with the included Sovtek 5AR4, Sovtek 6SN7 and Electro Harmonix 6L6, with a tear thinking, yes, yes the time has finally come.

Stop and listen to the original tubes, I think you may be pleasently surprised as to the calibre and the way it competes with NOS tubes. Best way to test this theory is to take all the NOS tubes out, dust off the Stock tubes sitting in the back drawer of a cupboard as mine where, plug them in and brace your self.

It does not get much better that that...Loads of Detail, Sonic Balance that does not tend to emphasise one area at expense of another, smooth and liquidy as one friend said today.

P.S. Remember to leave all the components on for at least 24 hours before passing judgement.

Happy Listening,
Fellow Audiophile (Learner)

Hello Clipsal,

I agree with you completely! I recieved my Cortese at the end of October of 2005. I owned a Syrah before that. Upon receiving the Cortese, I could not believe how fantastic it sounded. Since then it has gone from fantastic to absolute KILLER! I finally put in some NOS tubes, and I found the same thing as you did. The Cortese sounds better with the stock tubes! Mick has done a wonderful job of tuning the preamp to the stock tubes. I now spend my time enjoying music and not worrying about obtaining the latest and greatest tubes. All these guys selling NOS tubes for ridiculous prices can keep them. What more could you possibly ask for. A world class preamp that does not even need NOS tubes to sound world class. I also agree with your comments about your experience with NOS tubes sounding "different" but not better. My advice for anyone contemplating getting a Supratek is DO IT! .Don't worry about buying a bunch of overpriced tubes.

Finally! Damn, I waited so long for someone to post a message like this. The NOS tubes IMO does not "really" improve the sound of the preamp, it changes it and since you spend so much $$ for the tube, it must be good right?

Here's my post dated 7/7/05.

You are into something here. Although the Mullards are great in my Chenin (Metal GZ34), you have to remember that when Mick listened to the preamp, especially the phono, the parameters were adjusted with the conventional tubes in service.

For example, the right resistance to properly biased the JFET's etc. If you open the preamp, you will see that there are rheostat's (blue) on some junctions that their primary fuction was to "tweaked" or "optimized" a certain parameter(s) (i.e. voltage or current)to voiced out the preamp.

...just a thought...

I TOLD YOU SOOOOOOO!!!!!

I just put a review of my Supratek Cortese on the Audiogon review section.

On the subject of tube rolling, this was in my first post on Audiogon in 2003 ...

" As a final point, I have noticed that there is a lot of discussion about the merits of tube rolling with the 6SN7 output valve in the Cortese and Syrah. Personally, I think that Mick has carefully chosen the stock 6N8P (a 6SN7 equivalent) based on its sonic merits and there is no real need to replace the valve with another. I have in my collection the 6N8P and various 6SN7's including the black Ken Rads; black Brimars with red bases; Toshiba; Raytheons; Mullards and the Sylvania VT231. If I had to chose a favourite it would be the Sylvania VT231 because I find it the most transparent and the highs are sweetest(it can sometimes be a bit be microphonic though). I feel the Cortese and Syrahs are so inherently musical, that it does not make a huge difference swapping valves so long as the valve is nice and fresh, and not noisy to begin with. My advice on this is don't get anal about it, just enjoy the music! "

Having personally heard and seen seen Mick Maloney develop Supratek products since its inception around 1996, I know the guy to be meticulous in tuning each preamp on an oscilloscope to get them to sound the best before they are delivered to the customer. While this doesn't rule out tube swapping (it can be interesting and good fun) it probably does mean the preamps are optimally tuned when they leave the factory, so best to leave well enough alone.

Regards,

Steve M.
Western Australia