Preamp Deal of the Century

Hi Fiddler, try Herbies iso-cups instead of the cones. Should improve things even more.

Snopro, I tried iso-cups previously and they weren't as good as the cones, but that was using them under the metal plate. I currently use them under my amp, but I may have to try them under my preamp now that I have changed my preamp isolation setup.

Fiddler,
I find all this very hard to believe.
Have you read articles on sonic memory?
More like the differences you are hearing are subjective or being influenced by your seating or head position.

Believe it or don't!
Ever heard or sympathetic vibrations. Websters dictionary.
* Main Entry: sympathetic vibration
* Function: noun
* Date: 1898

: a vibration produced in one body by the vibrations of exactly the same period in a neighboring body.
Your ears are more sensitive than you think.
Ever hear tubes ring, speaker cabinets vibrating at frequencies affecting sonics. Room acoustics. One cable manufacturer actually uses metal shot in their power cables to damp resonances. I was like you and didn't think any of this stuff made sense, but I became a believer. I even used bicycle tubes under my equipment (gonna try this on the Supratek.) I it sounded much better. I didn't think a power cord made a difference in sound quality, but they do, even sometimes more than speaker and interconnect cables.
Hearing is believing. Those metal tops and bottoms on the Supratek sure look great, but they sure do vibrate more than wood or heavy aluminum etc. They need to be damped some way!

Jtgofish,

LOL.

I'm not asking anyone to believe it. Just relating my experience.

If you have a Supratek, easy enough to experiment.

And I think my sonic memory is good enough to last about 5 minutes from one change of footing to the next. Chair in the exact same spot. Exact same music cuts that I have listened to a hundred times.

The difference has been rather significant. And if you know the chassis design of the Supratek, it makes a lot of sense if you think about it.

But I don't expect you to take my word for it. It's easy enough to try.

And believe me, I am not one that falls easily to Audio Nervosa. If I clearly hear a difference, I will say so. On the other hand, I don't try to kid myself either if it's not obvious in my system, no matter how much everyone else is raving about something, I trust my own ears.

As an example, I just auditioned the much hyped Synergistic Research Apex and Precision Reference ICs in my system. The Audio Metallurgy ICs that I have been using were better in every respect except the mid-bass and there it was still close. That's $6,000 ICs against $400 worth of ICs. I can easily afford the SR ICs and if they were better, even modestly so, I would purchase them. But they weren't in my system. Regardless of what the over-whelming consensus has been in the Synergistic thread.

I realize many guys from the Synergistic thread here will find it inconceivable that I found the AM cables better, but once again, that was my experience. I have auditioned a lot of gear in the last couple of years and I haven't made that many changes. I try very hard not to let myself be fooled by the hype of reviews or the popular opinions here that seem to often to be nothing more than hype or Audio Nervosa.

If someone constantly posts positive results about everything new that they audition, (and there are many here who do) that simply sends up a red flag to me. I find it laughable that every 3-6 months some here move on to new components or cables. To me, that's a sign of someone who easily falls prey to Audio Nervosa...and trust me, I ain't one of them.

Think about it, how often to you see guys post to a thread like the Synergistic thread that the "newest and latest and greatest" cable design is "jaw droppng". Well, search their posts and you will see a pattern that EVERYTHING they try turns out to be stunning. If it's a new component or cable, it always turns out to be better. And I believe that's simply nonsense.

So back to the topic at hand. If you have a Supratek, play around with it. It may or may not work in your system, but it is a rather cheap experiment. But more importantly, first examine the chassis of the Supratek and I think you may find rational reasons why the thin, poorly supported metal plate on the bottom of the chassis may be a terrible base to support the preamp to begin with. Simply tap the bottom plate and listen to it vibrate.