Preamp Deal of the Century

@richmon A bit off topic but I wonder if your foam tubes might not unintended effects on the sound. Off hand, two theoretical hypotheses come to mind (although I’m not an expert): 1) the foam acts as an additional insulator that counteracts the developer’s intended design and construction of the cable(s); and 2) on another forum SR’s Ted Denny recently linked a video that speaks to how the fastest moving electrical fields pass mainly outside the cable, not through the wire, which raises the possibility that your tubes are interfering. For example, in the 19th century the first underwater (ocean) telegraph cables that were held together by iron sheaths were quickly deemed a failure because of the latter’s interference. Foam is not iron, obviously, but what evidence do you have that its properties or mere presence don’t interfere to some degree? The video Denny linked, "The Big Misconception About Electricity, is on YouTube:

My foam tubes are on the interconnects where the AC cord is nearby or crossing,  my goal was to eliminate or reduce those electrical fields in and around the AC from the signal. wire/interconnects. Sorry I wasn't clearer about that, no foam tubes are on the power cords.

I'm not smart enough to fully understand Ted's video but I presumed he was referring to AC flow and that didn't apply to the signal current flow. 

I’m not sure your presumption is correct. This subject came up because of SR’s Carbon Tuning Disks, which are meant to be placed on power cords and IC’s to deal with the external fields that the video discusses. Here are are a couple of links, but first I should say that in my system they degraded the sound on balance or at best had no effect, depending on placement, so I returned them. It was hinted to me that they work more assuredly on SR cables. There’s a thread about them at WBF, including a few posts by Denny — https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/new-synergistic-research-carbon-tuning-discs.34386/

"world class" is a tall claim, what level of gear was used in the rest of the system to make this evaluation?

Anyone looking for a better umbilical for their Supratek for a really good price? For the second week in a row, Revelation Audio is running an auction here on Agon for a 0.5m cord. The title is "Upgrade for Cary, Supratek - Revelation Audio Labs umbilical power cable." The idea, however, is to participate but not to win, even if you need a different length. Yes, you read that right. PM and I’ll explain.

This site has extremely sensitive oversight. If you want more info about my last post, you can find me via head-fi.

My Cortese was shipped a few days ago,it's in the states,so hopefully by the end of the week I'll have it. Ordered the first week of March.

@skypop, I just received an early-vintage Syrah (line stage only) and is it superb. I don’t know if the Cortese is your first Supratek preamp, but if so you are in for a sonic realignment of what you thought was possible from a preamp.

My Supratek Chardonnay 3 is in transit from Australia via DHL I received the tracking number yesterday. I ordered January 31st  it's due to arrive June 21st according to DHL transit forecast.

@dlcockrum Yes this is my first unit,can't wait to get it in my hands! @chuckie mine is due on the 22nd. Great Father's Day Gift,better than a shirt and Tie combo for sure lol

Skypop

Congradulations on your purchase. Did you ship through DHL or another carrier?

Is Supratek still in business?  I thought it went out of business long ago.  The email address on its website seems invalid.

You mean an email bounced? I haven't heard from him since later April, but as others reported here, their orders just shipped. 

Highstream, my email didn't recognize the Supratek email on the website as a valid email address. Do you know how to contact him? Thanks.

No, other than phoning.

Nothing wrong with the one on the website as I just communicated with him on Friday using it.  

The Chardonnay is a great preamp. Clean, detailed and yet not analytical. I was fortunate to get a used one for $1,600. 

@chuckie yes Mick shipped using DHL. The 22nd is supposed to be the arrival date.

A little less than a year from now this thread will qualify as an adult. Amazing. Over 20 years old and this thread is still relevant. And Supratek is still producing "the Preamp deal of the Century".

Love my Supratek!

Skypop

I just checked and my Chardonnay left England and is enroute to the Ontario Service Area a couple of hours ago by DHL. I really don't think the Chardonnay will reach me by Tuesday June 21 according to DHL tracking.

It's official, my Cortese arrived this morning! So far its definitely sounding great! Only a few hours on it but from when I first put it into the system to now I can hear that it has opened up more, at first it sounded a little stuffy but not now lol. Mine is the dark wood base with chrome plate tops. The rest of my system consists of Magnepan 1.7i,and 3.6r's that I switch between sometimes,2 sunfire subs in use when the 1.7i's are playing,PS Audio M1200 amps, chord cutest dac,meridian cd transport and a meridian 518 processor, and my trusty Technics ML-1000 Mk2 Table with a Ortofon TA210 arm which I use different carts with. Everything sounds more lifelike and life-size. My other preamp is no slouch by any means-Marantz7 Preamp,technology moves on but I would still never sell my Marantz. 

As I mentioned above, the Supratek Chardonnay is an amazing preamp. It is now a few notches better because of the addition of the Revelation Audio Labs umbilical. Brad put 75 hours on that cable in his shop and I am reaping the benefits. I’ve listened 5 to 6 hours tonight and the improvement is quite significant. A cleaner presentation, better resolving, a richer midrange including vocals etc etc. If it weren’t for the many favorable comments about Brad‘s cable, I wouldn’t have given it a try. The rest of my system is….                                                                             Van Alstine SET 120 Control Amp
Supratek Chardonnay preamp
Fritz Carrera 7 BE speakers
Border Patrol SEi dac
iFi Zen Stream & Mojo Audio lps 
Wywires Silver cables & Audio Envy power cords
Roon, Tidal, Qobuz
PI Audio UberBUSS                            

Nickb, how do you like the Van Alstine amp ?

and your dac ?

Nice system.

Thanks gryphongryph. The Van Alstine is a great little amp and an overachiever for the money. It performs well across the board with the only caveat being I don’t listen to the very low bass recordings. So I can’t comment on that. It was recommended by a member here who is also a Chardonnay owner. I quite like the border patrol SEi dac as well. But I want to preface that by saying that there was a very nice improvement by adding the Jupiter beeswax caps. Cost me $250, but worth the money. I know it measures crappy, but I don’t buy based on measurements and I’m not technically inclined anyway. I will be getting JMR Voce Grandes in a couple of months, so I’ll be curious if the AVA amp, BP dac and iFi Zen streamer will be up to the task. Even though I’ve been in this hobby for over 30 years, these are new benchmarks in sound quality. My goal was for a very musical and engaging sound and I think I’ve achieved that so far. It took me a very long time to get to this point…..

Happy to report my Grange LS will arrive on Monday via DHL. Ordered beginning of Feb - a real test of patience. I put up my current Chardonnay v3 for sale and it went within 12 hours, a real testament to the strength of the brand Mick has built. I am so excited… will have to ‘work from home’ on Monday…. 

deutscherhififan,

What color/finish did you choose?Please let us know your thoughts on its sonic performance. 

Beautiful piece. 

I ordered a black/chrome unit without tubes with a few minor modifications. My Chardonnay was wood/chrome and was beautiful. I figured I try something different this time... but really, they are all gorgeous. I will report on sonics once preamp and new EML 300B and EML 45 tubes are a bit broken in. xmas is coming early, for sure.

deutscherhififan,

You have good taste as that is what I have. Pictures of the Grange on Mick's blog do not do it justice. 

Look forward to hearing your opinion on its performance. 

I have a Grange running Psvane 300B (supplied by Mick as stock) Black chrome, previously had a Cabernet dual, with the jarra wood?, I personally liked the cab dual finish better.

The grange is a great amp, very quiet noise wise.

I had a few issues during shipping like the trafo in the power supply getting loose, I had to tightened the central bolt that holds it (not too much since you can deform the top plate), and had to mount the actual pre on 4 isoacoustics as the stock rubber feet tend to be short on length.

Aside of that great pre, congrats @deutscherhififan hope you enjoy it

I got the EML 45 XL tubes and I kind of prefer the 45 over all other 300B I tried but the psvane is actually very decent

My only big regret of which I was aware of is not being able to use MM on it 

It might depend on which Isoacoustics you’re using, but I found something more, such as AV Roomservice EVP’s, does a better job of iso under my Chardonnay now Cab (MD for the main, HD for the ps). But then mine are stationed on the bottom shelf, with a sensitive studded floor construction underneath. 

@deutscherhififan  saw your ad and considered it, but I recently bought a Don Sachs D2. I will add a Supratek one day. Your linestage was beautiful looking. I wouldn't have been brave enough to sell it before hearing the replacement. Looking forward to your review.

Thanks,

Doug A

@aldnorab  yeah, I know, maybe I should have waited, but Mick said he listened to it for a week hooked up to a 300B SET Amp he built for himself and reported it sounded great with no noise/hum. I guess I believed him... My buyer was very happy, quote: "The tonality is jaw dropping".

@luisma31 what's an EML 45 XL tube? I see the regular 45, the mesh, and the globe, but no XL. I have both the EML 45 mesh and the 300B mesh as well as a EML 274B Mesh rectifier. 

My unit got stuck in customs in Perth and is just now leaving :(... Continued patience required.

@deutscherhififan the 45 XL is a product of my imagination, apologies for the confusion, I meant the 45B

http://www.emissionlabs.com/datasheets/EML45B.html

My Grange arrived today, but sadly not all is well. For starters, despite many emails over the course of the 7 month wait, Mick sent a wood version instead of the black unit I ordered. I have no idea how that could have gotten lost as I even put '1 Black Supratek Grange' into each PayPal payment description I sent. I am wondering if he is trying to build too many these days and loses track of his customer's orders. The unit also has a loose or defective power tube socket as one of the 300Bs is very, very wobbly once inserted. Very odd for a brand new preamp. For me, that's now two for two as my original Chardonnay arrived with one channel not producing sound. I ended up having to open the preamp and re-solder a cable to a XLR socket tab. I hope others have more luck. I have been so distressed that critical listening has not yet happened. 

Yes, I've found Mick can forget what's asked of him. He has a tech in the U.S., who I had a private exchange with which some months back but can't find now.

@deutscherhififan 

Please post how and if this gets resolved.  I have one on order and the truth is I'm not in the habit of paying to create problems for myself.  Having to repack and ship a new preamp for repair or refund falls right into that category as well.  

deutscherhififan,

If black/Chrome is what you ordered then I stick with that choice. They are beautiful and I would not think of getting the natural wood version.

Please keep us posted

Grange Black/Chrome

I contacted Mick and asked for a replacement black unit, holding on to this one in the meantime. No response yet and god knows how long that will take. The good news is that sound is not impacted at all and the preamp functions as intended.

Your temporment may effect how/what you listened to with the frustration of a long awaited product not arriving as intended but with that said what are your initial impression? 

The black unit is stunning.  

juanmanuelfangioii,

Thats why I was encouraging deutscherhififan to hold out for the black/chrome.  It's two separate chassis that are larger than the photo eludes too. 

There is a good chance that two shipping labels got mixed up and we may soon know who  belongs to the unit in your possession and they have yours.  Also 12 hour time difference so Mick doesn't usually see US e-mails until much later in the day for us.  Also his US tech is a member here who participates in the other Supratek thread.

After one day of listening to the dual Grange Linestage (using the DHT output, not the 6SN7 output) with 6 out 7 tubes being new and the unit obviously not broken in, either, I can only say ’wow’. If this is any indication of what’s to come, I can only tip my hat to Mick (despite the color issue...). My system sounds out of this world - tonality, spaciousness, texture, detail, and 3-dimensionality are far above and beyond anything I have heard in my living room. This is definitely a step up from the Chardonnay and I thought that preamp was amazing. I will play with the 6SN7 output over the next few days and compare. My system is fully balanced so it is a drag the 6SN7 outputs are only RCA, hence it is not that easy to swap back and forth. I had asked Mick if all outputs could be XLR, but he said that’s a major re-design. I am currently using EML 300B Mesh, EML 274B Mesh, Gold Lion KT 66, and Linlai 6SN7 Elite tubes. Also, for full transparency, I use the Revelation Audio umbilical power cord. I have other new and NOS rectifiers (Sophia Electric Mesh, USAF 596 with adapter from Woo Audio), 300Bs, NOS 5881, and 45s I will try out over the next few days and report back. I hope to hear from Mick tomorrow.

Btw, the picture of the black unit above shows the 'full' Grange including phono. I ordered a line stage only, no phono. Mick builds this into the Cabernet chassis, hence it is smaller than the full Grange. Less tubes, too, obviously. 

I heard back from Mick. He says he is sorry about the color mix-up, but in his humble opinion wood looks better anyhow and that I should not worry about the socket being a bit loose..... Hmmm. I guess we are all blessed to be able to buy from him. I have to consider my next move, maybe a PayPal dispute will wake him up. 

@deutscherhififan 

Is the 300B socket loose in the chassis or is the tube wobbly in the socket as if the pins are too small? If the later that's a simple adjustment.

It's both. Right side is perfectly fine and tight, left side has a loose socket (I am sure I can tighten that), but the tube wobbles in the socket.

If you swapped the tubes from side to side to determine they both have the same size pins and they both wobble in that socket then you can tighten the socket's grip with just a jewelers screwdriver.  Many vids on You Tube of how to do it.  Usually doesn't need to be done for years with a tube swapper but I guess they can be loose out of the box.  

http://www.swartamps.com/tech/socket_retention/