Preamp Deal of the Century

Tom instead of your bits of bites why don't you serve us up a meal. What do you like, what works and why and furthermore, have you heard a Supratek product and if not, nor are interested, why are you driving in this neck of the woods with your nebulous comments? Ok so you've got 30 years and you've listened to a lot of gear and your a dealer and you are presumably here to enlighten us, so enlighen. This is no place for cynics that haven't heard, no one here is interested, no offense but make a point beyond methodogy man.

Rcn: nice on the...poetry (I liked it, actually, quite smart!), but are you trying to say you are a relativist, ie. that all fingerprints are equal? Haven't met many scientists that feel that way...Really though, I'd be interested.

Question to start you off, if you choose to start there: What is "natural"? If sound is defined, as a scientist would, as a materialist phenomenon, then all sound is in nature; in that all sound you hear is in "nature," as that all sound is in reality. Ergo, the stereo sound is as "natural" as any other sound.

So, assuming, arguendo, that all sounds are, um, real, then there must be some other "reference" that you are using than merely the materialist objective. Which, of course, leaves the subjective. Or, more precisely, the mind's relationship with the objective. Which necessarliy implies, that the difference you are citing between stereo sound and, um, "natural" sound, is one of perception by the mind. On the other hand, maybe you mean that a stereo will never replicate the objective sound propogation of an orchestra, which seems to be an obvious given, so it couldn't be that. Which then makes one assume that, again, you must mean the subjective, and...well, maybe you should say what you mean clearer. You can leave in the fun too.

Tom: disappointed that you can't seem to come in out of the cold. Consider this: the root of the word "ignorance" is to ignore...

bwhite: you are a scrappy guy, no doubt. Just be careful, though, don't get lost in that forest of rectifiers (like I've done in the forest of Toms!)

Yea, tubegoover: I never understand these guys: give 'em a bit-o-knowledge or socio-economic leverage - I'm a physicist, I'm a rich guy, I'm a dealer, I, I, I - and they think that the world falls away. Credentials don't answer the question, WHY DO YOU FEEL THAT WAY AND WHAT ARE YOUR LOGICAL/EXPERIENTIAL REASONS FOR SAYING SO?

It seems pretty simple, doesn't it? Or, is this just a small white guy sword fight with no faces/answers?

Thin skinned maybe. Some of my ideas on this site have gotten me wacked. Some days I lack the skills and the patience to explain some of the methods that I use, some will be applied to real acoustic musical instruments. I try not to dampen anything.I believe in direct coupling.Equipment is direct coupled, speakers, subs ,even the acoustic devices I built to redirect the flow. I think of my room as an aerodynamic vessel not as a room that needs to be tamed and dampened by lotsa sound deadening materials. I killed the music in previous rooms of mine. I try to focus the energy that is trapped along 90degree surfaces. Dynamics speed and resolution are not lost in this method of control and refocusing of the natural energy contained in the room. I am not a engineer I am not a mathematician..These are ideas and concepts that I have am willing to experiment with and ask for the proper help when needed. So when I stated that my soundstage was 180 degrees or more I feel I was not mistating this audible and visual presence. Others who have come by stated the same thing. A few ,before they arrived, said it had to be gross reflections, when they left they said it wasn't reflections after all. Now it does not do this trippy stuff on every recording but the stage is always outside of the box. Some of these ideas came from the use of Argent Room Lenses. Again sound pressure is like fluid in that it can be redirected and refocused. Moving the Room Lenses around I found that the edges of the stage were more defined and sharpened. By doing this, broadens the stage I feel in a natural way. I found in my room that there is a bass suckout. The bass is in the room but it is on the ceiling. I found this out one day while playing music and changing a ceiling lamp. So I built a 5 sided panel of three different angles that is direct coupled to the ceiling that captures and redirects some of this lost bass energy back to my listening chair. The fellow that built the panel said it looks like a space ship. The ship is dual purpose,it also contains my projection screen. So because I state these ideas and describe these devices in vague terms I leave myself open to being wacked. Self fullfilling I guess. These ideas and other concepts are ways I maximise the sound of equipement in my room. These are concepts that I try to design into customers systems as well. Tom

Tom, nice post, thank you. Although I know what you mean by some posts on this site - most sites, actually - it is also true that many times a similar affliction is one of patronizing criticism without rationale, which, ironically, hypocritically, or at least in my book, is of a similar-in-kind offense as the one you cited. I do not think that citing an offense on the latter constitutes being "whacked." But enough of that...

I agree with you completely on your post, but with all the do-dads out there it sometimes takes a lot of experimentation to "see" the fluid thing. You can change a room a lot, but its best to let it breath. In the best of these types of rooms, some people initially call them live rooms, but as you said, its more than that, although, metaphorically, the room does seem more alive, as in organic, symmetrical in how sound "moves" (propagates/dissipates). The mind, on an existential level, is very sentitive to time/space incongruencies and a damped-type room can many times worsen things on that level while, on a level of perception that is less deep (where the mind is not listening as deep) some things may be perceived as improved. Which is why its tough to get a room right. Some rooms are well nigh impossible, but if you have a decent starting place you can have a room that is receptive, as in, one that allows energy to flow (its a vessel, as you say). Or rather, the room allows a simulcrum of the illusion of non-stereo produced music through a stereo instrument. The sound is not the same as heard in an orchestra, BUT the mind's perception of that musical event is catalyzed to similar depths of perception; the sound may be different, but the experience of the mind is similar (that's for you, Rcn...). A good, en-livened room can be a vessel for that message to be heard and experienced.

I remember I once visited the good men at Shun Mook at their homes in CA. The man who owned the company collected violins and when he placed a certain violin hanging by a thread centered in space behind the speakers, the dynamic/spatial nature of the room became a touch more "organic", continuous, etc. Even more strangely, he then put up a very rare and beautiful sounding violin in the same place and the room was utterly transformed, all the above traits seeming to be released and settled into each other, until all you did is fall back into the music and forget those traits at all; the mind was not cued to deep spatial incongruencies of sound movement and so you went deeper. It was an interesting experiment...

Has anyone rolled the regulator tubes (6L6EH's) that come with the Cortese ?

I was told that rolling the 2 regulators does not make much (if any) difference in the sound of the Cortese. Has anyone had great success in changing out the stock 6L6EH's and if so, what sonic changes did you hear and what tube yielded the best results ?

I have had some fantastic results with Neotron (NOS) 6SN7's and a GZ34 in place of the 2 6N6P's & the 5AR4 that Mick included. Both cost a fortune, but what difference. The sound is just spectacular. I loved my Cortese before the addition of these 3 new tubes and now it’s just beyond Heaven to sit down and listen.