Preamp Deal of the Century

I would echo much of what Bwhite said.

I love the WE 350B's. Far and away the best regulator in my opinion. I like the RCA Metal 6L6's next and then the GEC KT66's.

Both the Ken Rad and the 1952 Syls are excellent 6SN7 variants.

Mullard 5AR4 (GZ34) is outstanding. I had the timing and pace problems with the Bendix that Bwhite described, but others have loved this rectifier. If you are interested, let me know, its brand new.

The good news is the Supratek is so transparent that you can mix and match tubes until you find the combo that you like. Believe me, you can find any sound you want if you play with the tubes enough.

For Granny:

Guys, no good in going WE 350 right off the bat...nothing is ever as good as we think it is, and this increases in effect when you look at from when, well, someone is looking at it. Look at where someone is, the curve, and make the recomm from there.

Go, for now:

Tung 5881 for Sovteks, no doubt

Hold off on the Ken blacks on the 6SN7's. Coming from Resolution CD and SS Parasound amps, regardless of their SS harmonic complexity, its, remember, a SS context (Crump would venture, agree on the context qualifier). As such, Kens might alienate with its, um, distant depth (the bass on the Kens is so good because it dissipates so naturally into the depth field, but from SS perspective this is a lost perspective, at least intitially, in a search for "lost" dynamics, and particularly in the bass octaves). Go Sylvania VT 231 circa 1940 era for now. If still too "vague" in bass, then Brimars, then later to Ken blacks. Stay away from metal base; over rated, at least in this application, ie no use going brittle to get the semblance of quickness.

Get Mullard GZ 34 - experiment from there if the mood moves you.

Do line stage first, then move onto phono NOS tubes.

Don't do all at once; get one, listen, for SUFFICIENT time, then, if need be, something else. Listen to others, become enthused, but don't move too fast, or the listening ear will be left behind. The mind needs time to aclimatize to each change, especially when from one "kind" of emphasis to another, ie from SS emphasis (no matter how good the SS) to stuff like the Supra.

Good luck! Very glad you are happy, much ahead...

Ecclectique: In reply to your post of 20.01.04, I apologise for not responding earlier but I have been laying wood floors in my home and have had to put the hi-fi thing to one side ...

I can tell by your post that you are a fan of Proac and it's designer Stuart Tyler. Also that you have good ears, because you have pegged the sound of Proac as 'beautiful' (which is precisely as I would describe it). Tyler is a master speaker designer, and having heard the Response 3.0; the 2.5; Studio 200 & 150; and the excellent Proac EBS(with ATC dome midrange), I would say that all of his speakers have a similar sonic signature, that is, they have good bass, musicality in spades and a 'beautifulness' about the sound.

Tyler has a few tricks up his rather long sleeves to achieve this sound. Namely, from what I know ...

- the crossover usually has an in-built 'BBC monitor dip' in the treble and midrange region to give that soft, mellow listenable character. Surprisingly, without too much of a loss of detail. This is different from many of the overtly detailed/lean sounding US audiophile speakers.

- usually Proac speaker boxes 'sing', that is, they are tuned to resonate whereas as other audiophile speakers are inert, heavy and dead sounding.

- he has some tricks (alternative thinking) applied in the crossover design, e.g, in the Response 2.5 the phase of the tweeter is in reverse to the mid/bass driver. This results in the 'beautifulness' that we like.

With respect to my own Proac 2.5, it is a great speaker and IMO it will go down in history as a Classic. However, in comparing it to my Electrostats and other audiophile cone designs I have/had in my collection including three-ways using Raven ribbons/Accuton Ceramics/Seas Magnesium/Beryllium drivers, the 2.5 has an obvious hole in the mid that IMO needs to be resolved (for want of a better word).

This has lead me to marrying a Raven R-1 tweeter to the Proac Response 2.5. It is IMO a marriage made in heaven! All of the great bass, musicality and voicing of the original 2.5 is retained. But the upper mid is much more resolved, and inciciveness, detail, air and transparency in the treble region is greatly improved...almost rivalling the audiophile speakers that I have mentioned! A tiny bit of the Proac magic is lost, but this is more than compensated by the other gains to be had with the Raven modification.

I have to say that after listening to the Raven cloned Proac Response 2.5, the original version with the cheap Scanspeak tweeter is just downright boring!

All of this is particularly relevant if you own a Supratek Syrah/Cortese/Grange preamp, because you cannot appreciate the full potential of these pre's until you have a speaker with the speed and detail of Electrostatics or Raven ribbon tweeters.

Regards,

Steve M.

Asa

The Parasound Halo JC1 is the onlu=y SS amp I have ver owned. I am a true blue tube man. But these SS mono's are the best amp I have heard on my speaker by a wide margin.If I xlosed my eyes I would have NEVER guessed it was a SS amp. Would have bet is was a powerful tube brute with dozens of glowing tubes. Except the bass is better than any tubes I have heard.

I want to thank everyone for the great info on the tubes. I will start one tube/pair at a time and give my ears a chance to understand what is happening.

I do notice quite a bit of tube hiss through my speakers. I suppose this is common on the Syrah? When my Opus went directly into my amps it was dead quite. I also had to put cheater plugs on both amps and the pre to rid my system of an aweful ground loop hum. Hate spending all the money on dedicated 20 amp outlets, PS audio outlets, high end power cables and introduce this .59 cent cheater plug!

Do love the pre and wonder if anyone else had the same ground loop problem.

Grannyring

Granny- If I remember you got your used as did I. Did you get the "manual". If you did, re-read it and you will see that Mick used unshielded wire throughout and you also have the umbilical. Combined with the overall high system gain, there are lots of opportunities for hum and noise. I had to re-arrange the two pieces, and re-dress the umbilical to get rid of the hum, but now it is as quiet as a tube piece will ever be. There IS crosstalk between sources, so you will have to shut off one when you listen to another (or at least I do). I also am using a Balanced Power unit, but have had that for a while. Of course ground loops can be a bitch, but you may not actually have a loop. If the pre is closely positioned to a powerful transformer, you can definately get hum. Try moving things around and you should be able to get rid of the cheaters (if not, give me a shout and I've got a Vans Evers power cord with a 2 prong plug and separate ground wire you might want to borrow.