Preamp Deal of the Century

I'd just like to say welcome to Srajan, your input to this forum is greatly appreciated.

As to tube rolling and cap swaps, I'm one of the Supratekies who doesn't believe in upsetting the apple cart and listen to my Grange preamp as the maker intended - with Auriecaps and the tubes as it left the factory. Living near Mick here in Western Australia and having known the guy for over 15 years, you get a feel for the way he thinks and the pride he takes in 'tuning' the sound of his preamplifiers before they are delivered to customers.

That is not to say I am not a tweaker as you can see from my many ramblings and playing around with my hi-fi at: http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?vevol&1146370182&view

So IMHO, its best to leave well enough alone and just enjoy the Suprateks as is.

Regards,

Steve.

Here's what I don't get. It seems that some here think that one shouldn't change caps, pots or even tubes in Suprateks simply because, "Mick didn't build 'em that way."

I think that is just so much nonsense. As much as I respect Mick's work, he's not God. I clearly happen to disagree with him on the DACT and the V-Caps. That's okay with me that we disagree, I still respect his opinion, I just have a different one.

Ralph Karsten of Atma-Sphere also has a different opinion. He offers an expensive cap UPGRADE on his preamps to guess what ... V-Caps and I think Ralph has a pretty good reputation in the business.

I find it ironic that while some believe that Mick's preamps "shouldn't be tinkered with", Mick offers this on his website:

"The Cabernet Single uses 6SN7 and 101D tubes , but can also be ordered with your favorite DHT tube. Choose from the 45,300B or 101D (standard) or if you would like to hear the lush smooth tones of a genuine 1930's NOS tube we can supply the single with 6SN7 and 33 tubes..."

Well, what the hey! That's some major tinkering.

To some it's heresy and just short of a crime to change to a cleaner, clearer, better defined, more musical cap (V-Cap or Mundorf) or better attenuator (DACT) because, "That's not the one Mick uses." However, I'd bet these same people would find it perfectly okay to change to a 45, 300B, 101D or a lush 33 all in the same preamp simply because Mick says it's okay on his website!

Hey, sorry for the rant, but it's silly to think that four different tubes can be chosen for the same preamp to alter the sound to one's preference, but heaven forbid one should change a stock tube, cap or pot!

Don't get me wrong. I think Mick's preamps are works of art, but I'm still going to trust my own ears no matter who may have a different opinion.

Agreed Fiddler, and a lot what you say makes sense and different tubes *do* sound different. However, you'll notice that what Mick proposes with tube swapping is changing the type of tube to alter the sound, say from a 45 to 300B rather tube rolling within the same type.

That said, I suppose it is common knowledge that some tubes within the same type are better than others, the Western Electric 300B being a good example of a universally praised 'best of' 300B. With Mick's preamps all I'm saying is that they leave the factory sounding pretty good, and a lot of us have found for example that his chosen EH-6SN7 seems to sound just as good (if not better) than the drawful of expensive Kenrads/Sylvania VT231's some of us have ended with!

In the end, I do agree with you that you need to trust your ears and if tube rolling or cap swaps give a perceived better result - then thats all that matters.

Regards,

Steve.

To be clear, just because I happen to share Mick's personal preference for the Auricaps now that I have compared them to the VCaps doesn't mean (nor should it be inferred to mean) that those who prefer the VCaps are off their rocker -:)

Nor would Mick make them available if people didn't like 'em. Just as you pointed out, tube rolling (and cap rolling) are simply after-the-fact voicing options for the end user and Mick's hard-wiring scheme makes experimenting with cap swaps a lot easier than circuit board mounting -;)

06-26-07: Amandarae
Hello Sorlowski,

My Chenin is #238 and it has an Auricap (1uF) at the output for both channels of course. Are you sure you are looking at the output caps? Maybe Mick change it who knows but just want to be sure you are looking at the right caps.

As for the teflon caps, after installing mine (Sonicap Teflon) for two weeks, I conclude that in my system although it produces additional "details" or maybe I am just expecting it to happen, I have to put the Auricap back. I do not know but for me, I noticed something regarding the "weight" of the presentation as in different "ambience" on the recording I am very familiar with. Hard to describe! Maybe it is not for me. Maybe my set up is not on par with "Teflon caps" capability.

BTW, the caps have atleast 400 hours on it since I used it on my SET amp before.

regards,

Abe

Same here! As I posted way back(see above), the Teflon cap is not my cup of tea. I really want to like it, but when listening to live recordings on vinyl, the ambient noise, venue noise if you will, sounds different to me. Not good! Life is too short not to be honest to yourself....

regards,

Abe