Preamp Deal of the Century

Slowhand,Just tuned in after my last post here.I'm going to try my best to make it next year.It would be great to meet some of you guys.With Mick attending next years show I don't imagine he will want to ship his amps and pres back to The Land Down Under.Hmmm? a new pair of mono amps. Too bad about the Podium speakers,makes you wonder about the reveiw at 6 Moons.Anyway Slowhand can you tell us more about the show? what was the hight light for you?

I think the real highlight for me was getting to meet so many people in the industry. I met Thom Makrus of Galibier Turntables. He invited me up to his listening room on Saturday night along with a few other people and we spun LP's from 7:30 to 10:00 PM. It was great. On Friday, Duke LeJeune of AudioKinesis invited me over after the show closed for the night to hear his Jazz Module speakers. That was a blast. I also met Jim Hagerman of Hagerman Technology and Allan Bhagan (I may have spelled his last name wrong). Allan is David Berning's right hand man. Allan was showing David's new $30,000 monoblocks (killer sound). I also had the pleasure of meeting Ralph Bagge of Artisan Audio. Ralph is the designer of the Artisan tonearm that Thom Makrus is using on his new Serac turntable. Price of the table, arm, and cartridge is about $4000 and it sounded very close to Thom's more expensive table. I heard the strain gauge cartridge in the Soundsmith room. Beautiful sound. The M-A Records room was using a 10 year old Sony cd player to demo their cd's. It was a very interesting design that was never imported to the USA. The designer of the player was there. He was an elderly Japanese gentleman who spoke no English. There were 2 younger Japanese gentlemen there with him to translate for him. He was very interesting to talk to.

There is so much to see. I was there on Friday and Saturday (we had to fly back home on Sunday). I hope to be able to stay for all 3 days next year. You really need all 3 days to see everything. I only ran into one other Supratek owner (docsavage). He is a very nice guy. We were in Thom Makrus's room together for the vinyl party.

We really need to make firm plans to have all the Supratek guys meet up at the show. You think you will run into each other, but it does not seem to happen because of all the people and the fact that the show is spread out.

I did want to mention that although there are many people there. I never had a problem getting into any of the rooms. The fact that the show is spread over many floors helps. I hope this convinces many of you to go. I really want to meet all of my Supratek friends next year.

Slowhand,

If you have already posted your speaker impressions, I missed them. I am in the market. Could you please tell me what you heard that impressed you and what disappointed you.

Thanks,

Warren

The following speakers impressed me. The Audiokinesis Dream Maker at $9000 a pair was very nice, but the Jazz Module at $4500 a pair seemed like a great buy.The Jazz Module has 92db efficiency, 32Hz to 17.5 kHz and is tube friendly. The Studio Electric T3 speakers sounded great. They listed at $8000 a pair. I also heard some monitor speakers in the Soundsmith room that blew me away. Fantastic sound in a small box. I don't remember the model, but they are on the Soundsmith website. For cost-no-object the Proclaim DMT-100 was very impressive. You can see them at proclaimaudioworks.com 3 round balls that set on a aluminum alloy stand. Price $26,000! I am sure there were more, but I don't remember them right now.

Hi to all Supratekies ...

About 4 years and a couple thousands posts back I bumped into this thread and was grabed by the enthusiast, knowdledge and camaradery of most of it's posts to the extent that I read throughout the whole thing, when still it was somewhat feasible to do ...
At some point mid through it I decided that it was worth the risk so I became a Supratek owner. Now on my third unit, a full 6SN7 Grange, I am happier than ever that I came aboard Mick's train, not only for the sonic and visual attributes of it's products but for the quality of Mick's support.

Several months ago I read Fiddler's post about the V-caps and Dact attenuator. I had in my agenda some minor mods. I needed to do in my unit like adding a 2nd. phono input and changing some loading values on the phono stage to better fit my cartridges. I was able to find a local technician with a long tube expertise and plenty of high-end sensibility. After discussing the project with Mick and following his advise and considering all his words of caution I went ahead with it.

I ended up changing the output caps, in my case a pr. of 9uf 200v Auricaps for 6.8uf OIMP V-Caps and the 2 phono stage .56uf Auricaps for teflon .68uf V-Caps. Mick approved the value changes. In the case of the output caps I was forced to go with the oils (OIMP) from the V-Caps because the teflon's value (and price) were not available. After studying the V-Caps site and a couple of emails with Chris Ven Haus and considering the much lower price of the OIMP I went with them. I also changed the Alps for the DACT attenuator.

To this point I have put short of 200 hrs. on the unit. I can tell you without any doubt that this has been the greatest improvement from a modification to my system I have experienced. The improvement in clarity and detail is very notable but also in weight, punch and air without any detriment to the tonality of the presentation. In my case both changes(capacitors and volume control) were done at the same time so cannot separate their individual contributions.

The Teflon V-Caps cost was $314 and the OIMP were $112; the DACT was $190, pluss the corresponding shipping and about $100 for the whole labor. To me it was very much worth it.

I would also ask the tube experts on this thread about a rectifier substitution. I am considering a Western Electric 422A NOS which I am told can be a sustitution for the GZ32/5AR4 rectifier used by this unit. Is this a valid substitute? Any comment as to it's sonic attributes? Not a cheap alternative, so any comment will be greatly appreciated.

Keep in touch.