Preamp Deal of the Century

Slipknot1,

I never bothered contacting Mick until at least three months. By then, he told me how many units are ahead of my order. Stay busy, time flies. I can assure you that your patience will be rewarded. In my case, I never imagined how much positive impact the Chenin would do in my system. Three weeks and counting I finally experienced the cliche "it gets better after so many hours" on what it really meant. I was a little bit worried at first(see past posts)but Ecclectique and Cello assured me how great the preamp really is.

Hang in there bud, a hand assembled Ferrari needs a lot of time and care to produced.

Lately (over on Audioasylum) there has been some talk of replacing the stock Supratek potentiometers (Alps) with a stepped attenuator. See URL: http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/tweaks/messages/101690.html

I have in the past considered this as a potentially MASSIVE upgrade for the Supratek but was talked out of it by Mick. DACT now has some remote controlled stepped attenuators available and I'm wondering if this might be something worth trying. Has anyone tried this?

I don't want to come out and say exactly why this would be a massive improvement - but I will say that if your Supratek has a new working version of the HT-Bypass, and you have an MP3 player (iPod type gizmo) connect it to the standard inputs as well as the HT-Bypass inputs and listen to the difference (massive improvement) bypassing the volume control makes.

Of course using the HT-Bypass input on a Supratek bypasses the entire gain stage as well.

Bwhite, that's a very interesting post.

When I first ordered my preamp I told Mick that I had a DACT attenuator that I purchased for a Foreplay kit that I had never used. I asked him if he would install it when he built my preamp. He said he would but that it would be inferior to the one he built for the Supratek.

As good as the DACT is supposed to be, I was suprised at his answer. Maybe I will try it since I have it. Shouldn't be to hard to implement.

BTW, I went to the DACT website and couldn't find a "remote controlled" DACT. I have a CT1, but I would purchase a remote control if they have one.

Hi Fiddler - After I made the post I also went to the DACT website and looked for the remote & couldn't find it. I remember seeing this (months ago) for sale on a DACT distributors website as well as on DIYCable.com --- I couldn't find it on DIYcable.com either.

Maybe the motorized remote was discontinued. :( I'll need to look in to this.

If you have the HT-Bypass on your preamp try it with any source which can regulate its own volume and then compare the same source connected through the standard inputs. This will give you some idea of what the volume controls on a Supratek "sound like".

Just looking..Is the Supratek dual mono? I have performed many mods on my Melos pre-amp over the years..One that was a bigee was installing 2 Noble volume controls removing the mute switch and the tape monitor switch, really a great improvement.Having two independent volume controls and no balance control makes for a huge stage, one that can be tweaked for perfect center fill.Tom