Preamp Deal of the Century

Stiltskin, Zachzdb and Slowhand...Just reading your comments gives me a much better supportive feeling about hopefully finding some solution to the matter facing both maril555 and me. Very importantly, Slowhand is absolutely correct when he asserts (speaking for myself) that I have no intention whatsoever of badmouthing Supratek or hurting Mick's business. I will say again, as I have several times earlier, that I believe the Cortese to be a superb product. I would LOVE to be able to more fully enjoy it in the same way most others have and do, and I am still confident I can. I am still in the process of trying different things, and it's probably wisest for me to kind of lay low for awhile until I can hopefully come up with the proper medicine, so to speak. I just want to relate that I found a few interesting comments on Audio Asylum from Todd Krieger (type in Supratek Cortese in Search of Amp/Preamp Asylum and look at entry #18). His choice of words---"shout" and "bombastic"---could possibly be his way of describing what Maril555 and I have been hearing. From my listening perspective, the upper midrange in particular seems to have that somewhat overly emphatic characteristic which, with certain instruments, e.g., horns and massed strings, I hear as glare, and I haven't been comfortable with it. I heard it again last night, while trying both Mullard and Amperex rectifiers, Tungsol regulators, Siemens gold pin 7308s, KenRad 6SN7s, etc. all working together. I assume that some of you would agree with me that these are pretty decent tubes. I might try Todd's recommendations with the KT-66s, etc. I read in a some previous Audiogon threads where a few Supratek owners attained results similar to Todd's using the same approach he did. In any event, I'm also preparing to experiment with several other cables (interconnect and speaker). Well, enough for now. Got to get to bed. Sincere thanks again to you fellows.

These comments made of possibly hurting Suprateks reputaion over acouple of problems, are way off. Micks sales are word of mouth,no amount of money will buy you advertising like this.Slowhand ,I hope Mick was appreciative....The preamp that I was set to buy before coming across Slowhands thread was $3000.00 more then the Chenin .I got around to comparing them side by side in my system. The Chenin wiped the floor with it especially comparing the phono stages...... Opuss hopefully you have afew audio dealers close to where you live. Getting complete runs of burnt in wire to try is not an easy thing to do.I had to be force full with some of these sales guys and store owners.

I should put all my futher comments on hold, until I get my new Cortese and Mondeuse amps from Mick.

Hi Opus. I'm sorry I couldn't respond a little earlier and thank you for posting your system as it puts a lot of things into perpective here. A very fine system sir,I am quite familiar with most of your gear and it's nice to see another vinyl guy.... as vinyl has always been my preferred medium for "voicing" my own gear. I sure can appreciate your frustration with this glare dilema, it's got to be driving you crazy by now. However, please don't shoot the messenger here....stay the course and you will discover the supratek is not the culprit. If your nos tubes in the preamp test strong,are void of microphonics and low in noise than lets look elsewhere in your set-up. BTW, are the Kenrad's the blackglass vt-231's or the clear glass 6sn7's with the parrallel black plates? [huge difference between the two]. As Stiltskin alluded to earlier, system synergy is of paramount importance here particularly with a high gain,high resulution preamp coupled to amplifiers of the same pedigree. Personally speaking....I can only offer my own experience with the use of Silver cabling but: I have had "Zero" luck with any pure silver wire in any of my rigs. An interesting story....about 10 years ago I remember hearing some top of the line Siltech interconnect and speaker wire in a friends system which consisted of: an ARC sp-8 mk2,[originally mine] a conrad johnson mv-55 outfitted and adjusted with nos tesla el34's,driving a pair of Vandersteen 2ce speakers,VPI table with rega arm, grado sonata.A very musical system and I thought... WOW,this is consideraby better than the Cardas stuff he was using prior.I was quite impressed with this so I went out and purchased the same cabling as I was using Cardas cross at the time in all 3 rigs. To be candid here and make a long story short,it was the a sonic disaster in my room[s] regardless of associated gear. I must say that I did like it's vibrant bass/ midbass quality however it was rather lean in the midrange and seemed to add a specific sheen to the presence range. Female vocals,cymbals,strings and horns seemed threadbare without body or foundation. At first I thought this was a burn in issue and the tandem needed more run in time.I was using it with a pair of proac response 3's, Arc SP-10 mk and a ARC d-79b amplifier,none of which could ever be accused of sounding bright. I then tried it in my main system rig: a huge dedicated room [ approximately 36ft x 32 ft with 16 ft ceilings]with 4 dedicated ac circuits, acoustat 2+2's,MFA Luminescence pre, Melco reference table outfitted with the venerable "the arm" by Sumiko, a Koetsu rosewood and all cardas golden cross cabling. With the Siltech in the chain... the system was unbearably bright. The presence range was very zippy sounding,bordering on edgy and was decidedly more forward in presentation within the soundfield.Hey, the SP-10's phono stage is as good as it gets at rendering a sense of depth in a good live recording... Yup, the Siltech could be considered clear and transparent and I could imagine it could be the cats meow in some rigs. To be blunt and honest here...It just drove me to distraction. Fast forward a few years...... I had acquired a pair of huge Tannoy Westminsters from a local recording studio studio for placement in this huge room and was consulting with a few other horny Tannerds with regards to updating the crossover, rewiring and voicing these humungous horn loaded transducers.The late Harvey "the Gizmo" Rosenburg had spent countless hours voicing his highly modded pr of Westminsters and was using Goertz silver wire with an active crossover and dedicated tubed amps. I was very apprehensive [to say the least]of employing any Silver cabling after my ordeal with the Siltech however, I consulted with Harvey regarding my silver wire apprehension and after many phone conversations he finally convinced me to give the Goertz a try. Well.....to make another long story short... Glare galor! Out came the silver and in went the Cardas Golden Reference, hard wired from the speaker to the outboard crossovers and back to the amps. OPUS...Just an thought here. Do you know the approximate crossover frequency on your custom hybrid speakers? I can only surmize it would be in or near the presence area or the upper presence area [2k to 3khz]. Can you bi-wire them? Silver isn't the best choice with most ribbon type tweets that I have played with, particularly when crossed under 5khz. If you can bi-wire...just for fun try some cheap copper lamp cord on the ribbon only. This should give you some kind of idea as to the signature of the silver. Regarless, I just have to say the supratek family of preamps are without doubt a true reference quality source component. I love both my syrah and cortese and can't even fathom using anything else. All the best in your endevour. Cheers.

I've been away from this post for a few weeks. Quite surprised (and disappointed) with the rancorous tone in some posts.

Anyway, I echo the comments offered to Opus88 and Maril555 to look a system contributions, especially silver. Not that copper is better, but some silver wires can react with the wiring in other components in one's system.

To wit, when I first bought my Belles 150A Reference amp, I couldn't believe my ears. It was awful! I was in shock - what were all those folks in the positive reviews talking about! I really wanted to sell it quick. But reason said I ought to look a bit deeper first.

I was using Kimber KCAG interconnects at the time, and with previously excellent results. I spoke to Dick Diamond at Kimber and he said he suspected the silver in it's present construction in the KCAG was reacting to the amp. He suggested I try the Select Series, initially in copper, and then in the hybrid if that worked out. I put in a KS-1010 (3 copper strands) between pre and amp and the glare and roughness immediately went away. I bought a KS-1011 (six copper strands) and put it in between my CD and pre, and the sound improved again. I took a deep breath, and bought a KS-1021 (two silver strands and 4 copper). The sound was even clearer. No glare. Finally upgraded to another 1021 between CD and pre. Better yet. Confident now that the Kimbers would work well in my system (YMMV), I went for further synergy and got Kimber Bi-Focal XLs for the speakers. Further improvement.

When I bought the Chenin, I was curious as to whether my cables would work well with it. They do. The reason you see so few Kimber Select interconnects for sale used is because for most people, they are the end of the line.

Another cable experience that might be of help: If your power cables are not neutral, they can liven up your Supratek too. A long time back, I tried the Electraglide cords. They compensated for some dullness in system caused by a Panamax power conditioner. When I changed to a neutral power conditioner (Shunyata Hydra), whoa! was everything bright and uneven. At the suggestion of Caelin Gabriel of Shunyata, I neutraled-out the system with some Kimber PK-10s (a basic Belden cord) and A-B'd the Hydra and Panamax. That identified the Panamax as the deadener and the Hydra as neutral. Went to Shunyata Taipan Helix cords all round (also neutral, but very fast). That eliminated power cords and conditioning as a source of system imbalance.

I should also mention that I also was not happy with the top end in the Tungsol 5881s in my Chenin. I didn't have glare, but the high frequencies seemed over-emphasized and the low end under-emphasized. The Sovtek KT-66s were better. I eventually went to NOS RCA 6L6As, which are balanced from top-to-bottom like the KT-66s, but more detailed.

Hope this helps. And good luck!