Preamp Deal of the Century

Hey Fiddler. No need to for any apologies here, just good to see your Tung-sol roundplates are starting show off and srut their stuff. Tube rolling with any gear can be perplexing at times given all the variables, particularly with the 6sn7 family of tubes. The entire 6sn7 family have a tendency to be prone to microphony and/or noise when employed as a gain tube. Given the incredable resolving capability of the Supratek preamps,and magnified by the high gain of the circuit itself....... you now have gain stage that will allow you to hear the best/or worst of the particular brand tube being employed. Unfortunately...the tube's noise ,hiss,hum,or microphony will be magnified as well. No wonder why Mick Maloney and so many others recommend using the stock EH 6sn7 gain tubes. Mick has done an incredible job of voicing his preamp with the EH 6sn7. I am more than certain Mick is testing,screening and cherry picking the best examples from every lot he orders from Electro Harmonics, culling and discarding the examples that don't make the grade. The EH 6sn7 is far and away the best sounding 6sn7 of current manufacture, leaps and bounds better than the sovtek he was originally working with. The very best examples of new old stock 6sn7's are so hediously expensive to acquire these days...when one factors in the n7's penchant to be prone to hiss,hum and microphony. I would guess the EH 6sn7 is simply a "No Brainer". I do consider myself very very fortunate these days as I have always had a huge collection of nos tubes at my disposal. I spent 14 years in the field as a techie for Dukane {Bell % Howell}. We serviced,repaired and calibrating amplifiers in the big movie theaters,concert halls, churches, schools,colleges, universities etc in Canada. The 6sn7 was employed in the majority of amplifiers back in the day, not to mention jukes, radios and nearly every television ever made.Allowing me the luxury of collecting hundreds on n7's when they were cheaper than cup of coffee. Ever wonder why Tube Dealers use a grade rating system for their inventory of old stock 6sn7's???? "Buyer Beware" is the appropriate warning here! If it is graded as a standard grade tube, or a driver grade tube.... Do yourself a favour and "don't even consider it guys".... as it's just a sure fire recipee for a major disapointment here, particularly if it's to be employed for a gain stage in a high quality preamp! Meaning... preamp grade tubes only here gang!!! Noisey tubes are a major liablity and will only serve to mask much of the micro resolution,nuance and timbre buried under the noise floor. Remove the noise and you will be just amazed at how much more of the musical information you've been missing! When voicing my Supratek with any given brand of nos 6sn7's... I would typically need to go through 6-10 examples to find a matched pair with a noise floor that was low enough for use in the supratek. Some brands...Kenrad Black glass for example[my favourite beside the Tungsol round], had an even higher culling rate! Fortunately, the Tungsol round plates are usually much more consistent here...typically lower in noise and tighter triode sections. Hey Fiddler, now that you have discovered the real magic of the Tung-sol round..... lose that pair over at flea-bay and grab a low noise pair. Life is grand.

I agree that the Tung Sol round plates are the best sounding line stage tubes in my Cortese, but when you factor in the cost these things are going for these days, I will stay with the EH 6sn7's (a true audio bargain). As Ecclectique says, you may have to gothrough several pairs to get a really quiet matched set. I just don't have the money or the interest in paying high prices and hoping I will get a good pair. The EH 6sn7's work fine for me.

Hey Fla. Did you get Dual cab up and running yet?

yeah yeah, very very nice! will write something up tomorrow night after work.

Ecclectique:
You know, I'm not sure what to tell you - I don't think I'll be of much help here. I just got the Wyetech Sapphires in a couple weeks before the Cabernet Dual and have not had the opportunity to pair the Sapphires with any other decent pre. I ran them briefly with the pre-outs of a $2500 Boston Acoustics rcvr, awaiting the arrival of the Supratek, so any observations at this time have little merit...

What I can say is that adding the Supratek is a huge step up, particularly in the treble and bass, size of soundstage, tonality overall, and in dynamics.

My source: Modwright SONY 999 with Signature Truth mods, the better clock, tubed output stage (Tungsol 5687s) with separate power supply. Power cord here is Tekline's best all-copper model. All components run off a Tripp-lite power bar, soon to be upgraded to a Running Springs Haley PLC.

Speakers: B&W Signature 805 monitors, 8-ohm nominal dropping no lower than 4.6 ohms, 88dB sensitivity, and a first order cross to the tweeter. These are bi-wired with Tekline's best copper.

The Sapphires are currently running with stock cords. An NBS dragonfly powers the Supratek. All cords will soon be upgraded to either Dream State or Stealth.

Front end interconnects are either Tekline's best silver model with Eichmann bullets (for SACD) or a Totem Sinew (for CD), with an Oritek X1 btwn pre and amps. This latter IC will be upgraded to a Jade Hybrid eventually.

So even with these limitations, I can only say the sound OF THE SYSTEM is quite natural, open, harmonically rich, and dynamic, but a tad too warm. I should also add that the Sapphire's 18wpc parallel SET sounds subjectively more powerful than my former 30wpc Audiomat Opera in push-pull! This may be due to the Sapphires' higher amount of 2nd harmonics that allegedly add body to the sound.

It's just very difficult for me to distinguish btwn what the pre is contributing vs that of the amps, since I've not compared each component to others. I can say that the Supratek is definitely NOT typically "tubey"-sounding, yet the mids are quite holographic and perfectly lush - not syrupy, as I would imagine a cheaper Cary or Quicksilver might sound. But this is probably due more to the Sapphires' 300Bs than from Supratek's 101Ds. I've yet to try the other preamp circuit using 6H30s, since this will eventually drive a REL.

The treble is very smooth, delicate, and harmonically rich - definitely NOT representative of your typical solidstate or digital offering.

Bass on this 101D circuit is weak in volume but high on texture and nuance. The REL addition later should alleviate the lack of dB.

I don't believe the Supratek is taking anything AWAY from the Sapphires, and is quite likely adding much to the soundstage and dynamics.

Also note that I've yet to roll tubes: the 6SN7s are stock Electroharmonix, the 101Ds are TJs, every thing else is Sovtek. Any recommendations for upgrades anyone??

I will have to comment later after the power cord, PLC, and interconnect upgrades, but so far so good, aside from a tad too much warmth, which I'll take over sterility any day.

Anyone willing to send me their ARC Ref 3, Aesthetix Callisto, or reasonable equivalent for comparison is most welcome to do so!