What's after Supratek

Must have tubes, so the H-Cat is out. Sorry, but I have never liked solid state. And I can't live without a remote.

It's helpful to hear about your comparison with your Jadis. No balance control, and no dual volume pots isn't an issue for me.

hey Jond, I'm surprised you feel the Herron bettered your Syrah. Did you have any NOS tubes? Any obvious differences in sound between the two setups?

Instead of a VAC Renaissance pre as an upgrade to my Supratek Syrah, how about a Supratek Cortese with a Welborne remote attenuator

Ron says it will sound at least as nice as a DACT, and it has only one resistor in the signal path (your choice of resistor brand).

Yeh, I'm definitely curious to hear about how the Welborne fares. It should be on the market in the next few weeks. I've been conversing with Mick about using it if I go with another pre from him, and he said that he's actually thinking of using it as standard if it works out well.

well, i ended up getting a great price on a VAC Renaissance pre w/ MM/MC phono, so I went with it... and sold the Syrah. Worked out well financially, we'll see how it fares sonically!

Well, I've been living with the VAC for a bit. It's more transparent, and more neutral. Bad recordings don't sound as good, excellent ones sound amazing. I think the stock tubes are a little thin sounding, I'm looking for some Mullards 12ax7 for the phono stage, hoping this fills in a bit of body.

The soundstage is more focused than the Syrah, and more 3 dimensional. It is faster than the Syrah, but maybe not quite as dynamic. It is definitely more open and transparent, and I thought the Syrah was already very open. Definitely more immediate sounding.

I'm finding myself wanting to adjust my speaker position a bit, as the soundstage is now more clearly defined and this positioning is now becoming more critical.

All in all, I'm pleased, though I do find myself missing some of the coloration that I now realize I had with the Syrah/Urushi setup. (I am now using a Shelter 501mk2 as I just was too paranoid about having a $4k cart)