Preamp Deal of the Century

Hello Braro. Your pre is in fact the Chenin,identifiable by it's tube topology in the phono stage. The original Syrah and the cortese phono stage employed the 6gk5 and the 417/5842 family of dual triodes. Mick elected to use the more common 6922/6dj8 and 6J6 dual triodes for the phono stage of the Chenin. Hey gang.... there are many nos substitutes or deratives for both the 6J6 and the 6922.The 6j6 can be substituted with many drop in deratives such as the British made m8081,the telefunken ecc91 as well as a host of many others. Regarding the 6dj8/6922 dual triode.It is a relatively common tube and for many years has been the tube of choice for the phono stage of almost every major commercial company. There are a lot of sonic flavours to the 6922 family of triodes although the best examples of the tube can be rather pricy for tube rolling experimentation. I am not sure of what brand of 6922 that Mick is supplying with the chenin but I would suspect the Chenin is delivered with a currently made tube from russia or china. If that is infact the case here, and if you think it sounds great now...WOWZA!.... I can assure all of you here that your in for a very major surprise here as any one of the 60's examples of that tube type from manufacturers like seimens, telefunken, amperex,mullard etc will just flat out "knock your socks off" as a substitute here, and give one a lot more options to voice and dial in the sonic flavour of the phono stage with ones cartridge of choice! Just a word of caution though.... The 6922 family of dual triodes can be prone to microphonics and can also be noisey right out of the box, never a good thing in any high gain phono stage let alone the supratek. Those here with a stock of nos 6922/6dj8/ecc88/ecc188's and cca's may want to roll them here and post your findings. For those that don't have nos stock of the 6dj8/6922 family... I have a relatively inexpensive tube recommendation that's a definative sleeper tube substitute here and with little risk or liabilty. I suppose we can call it a nos tube as it was actually manufactured strictly for the Russian Miltary before the Soviet empire's collapse. The 6n23eb can be found out there [with a little searching] and every example of this tube is extremely quiet, sounds nothing like the hard and glarey sovtek examples being manufactured today. The triode sections are tighter than any other example of this tube type including the legendary cca's from seimen and telefunken.

Hello all,
I'm from Italy and apologize for my poor English.
After reading this subject many times I'm ready to joining the "club", as i'm ordering today or tomorrow a Cortese. My current pre is ARC ls5 mk2 mod by GNSC, 7308s siemens outfitted, i really love it ims, but planning on a return to vinyl i need a pre-phono too.
I'm thinking now to keep my ls5 as linestage and Cortese as phono,then ....I'll decide which one will be the "winner" ims.
My system:
AA Capitole mk2--Gyrodeck sme309 Ruby2 .7v
Arc ls5 mk2.....
Goldmund 29M
Sonus Faber Amati.

Here is my little concern: Cortese or Grange? (the latter could be clearly better than arc allowing me to sell it)

Thanks everyone sharing opinions on my plan.
Sandro

One thing you guys have to remember is that there are Suprateks out there that use other tubes in the phono stage. Mine is one, it uses only 6c45pi. Cello's is another, his uses (correct me if I am wrong Larry) 2 6c45pi and 2 6922. The 6c45pi are not part of the 417a/5842 family, regardless of what anyone says.

I guess it proves that any Supratek is truly a custom piece. I have not heard of any 2 that are exactly the same. So I guess what I am saying is you cannot look at tube topology to identify a model. Everybody says that the Syrah only has one tube in the ps. Wrong!

Joe

Amandarae, Ecclectique, Jphii thanks for your input. I e- mailed Mick on the subject of "Chenin or Syrah". Mick tells me he does not use sheoak for the Chenin because its too expensive. Evidently he used to use it for the Syrah though and had sheoak Syrah cabinets left over from the Syrah days. According to Mick there are only 10 Chenins in sheoak that say "Syrah" in existence. The model name above the serial # on the back also says Syrah which seems strange to me. So I guess I have a Chenin.
Thanks again

Hi Gang. Yes it seems that Mick has used different tubes in his phono stages, sometimes even in the same model of preamp. He has in past,used the 6gk5 and 5842/417a combo in the syrah as well as the cortese.His web site states he is using the 6J6 in combo with the 6922/6dj8 family. After reading some of the threads here,evidently he has used the 6c45, the 6j6 or equivalents in combo with the 6922. That said: All of these tubes are electrically similiar and are considered to be in the same family electrically speaking. Although some of these tubes may not be direct subs,they would be considered electrical cousins. There is good reason why Mick has elected to employ this family of tubes. As most of you know,his phono stage has extremely high gain and can drive even the lowest output mc cartridges available today without the use of a transformer or step up device. The 417a or equivalents,the 6j6 or equivalents,the 6c4 or equivalents or the 6c45 are all tubes with very similiar electrical characteristics. All have high GM, a high mu of around 50,low rp and high current. The 6c45 for instance, is a super tube choice for duty here, with it's closest american equivalent being the WE 437. His phono stages must be considered "World Class" by anyones standards regardless of what tube he has employed. Geez... A tubed phono stage to drive a .2mv cartridge was simply unheard of no less than 10 years ago! Don't get caught up or confused with Mick's choice of tube here gang,trust me.... he KNOWS what he is doing here guys...................... Sandro.... Order the Cortese and you will surely be unloading your ARC ls5 mk2 the very next day. As a long time and former ARC preamp owner, I have been a fan of ARC preamps since the ARC sp-3a from the mid 1970's right up to the Sp-10 mk2[ which I still own today] I have owned the SP-3a, Sp-6a, SP-8a MK2, and the SP-10 mk2 and enjoyed my time with all of them immensly. Furthermore, the ls5 mk 2 is "far and away" the best sounding line stage preamp ARC ever produced! Always musical,warm and engaging... a beauty to be sure. Unfortunately... It's not in any where near the same league as any of the supratek preamps, not even close for that matter. My Syrah simply stomps on the line stage of both the SP-10 mk2 or the SP-8 mk2 [which is basically the same line stage of your LS 5 mk2]. The Cortese is even better sir! Like killing two birds with one stone and looks like a win,win situation to me.