Preamp Deal of the Century

Hello WcMustang, Congrats on your new acquisition. Tricked up? Can you elaborate. Did you order it with the px4 directly heated triode? I too am considering buying one myself. I have never heard the tube in a preamp stage however I have played with the a few px25 triodes over the years. These directly heated triodes, when used in an output stage of an amplifier have an incredible purity to them,amazing resolution of very fine micro detail and nuance that most output tubes only hint at. Hope you will post your thoughts after break in.... really looking forward to it!

About a year and a half ago (or so), I emailed Mick and asked him what upgrades he had done to the Chardonnay. He told me that the biggest upgrade he had made was switching to Auricap capacitors. He told me which two caps would make the biggest difference to change in my pre and I switched them for Auricaps. Noticeable improvement.

Well, I have been hankering to try Mundorf Silver Supremes in the Auricap position for at least six months. Well, I finally put them in this week. &%*#@$$! What a difference.

The Mundorfs simply blew the Auricaps away. There was a nice improvement when I put the Auricaps in, but to say there is an improvement with the Mundorfs is an understatement. These caps sound like a component upgrade!

The 3D palpability is greatly increased, great clarity overall, turned my subwoofer down due to increase in bass resolution, considerably deeper soundstage and greater separation of instruments. One of the best changes I have ever made.

Some time ago, I bypassed the selector switch and I am now going straight from the CD input to a DACT (highly recommended). The DACT and the straight input made a big difference in clarity. The Mundorfs made a bigger difference everywhere! The music just flows now.

I highly recommend taking 30 minutes to change a couple of caps if you are so inclined. My Chardonnay doesn't even sound like the same pre.

Ecclectique,
Yes PX4 direct heated triodes plus 76 in place of the standard 6SN7 (huge difference) and a few other minor tweaks. It is the only Grange of its kind in the world.
Audio has been a hobby of mine for 42+ years and words cannot describe the sound but perhaps this does:

(UFB)2
Gotta go and listen

Hi Fiddler. I have an order in for the welbourne labs attenuator,unfortunately they are in a back order position at present. Anyone tried it in a supratek yet? Thanks for the tip on the Mundorfs.

Ecclectique:

"I have saved the best for last as rewiring the tube socket is in order here to accomodate the 7193! The 7193 triode is a strange looking octal tube with plate and grid caps on the the top of the glass. These are electrically equivalent to a 6j5 single triode or 1/2 of a 6sn7. They were munufactured by RCA, NU, kenrad and tungsol as far back as the early 1930's.Many were used in old Juke boxes in their day as well as some early 50's tv sets. This tube just stomps on any 6sn7! Simply said.... there is no going back once you hear it. It's like comparing a telefunken ecc803 to a ge 12ax7, or a we350b to a 6L6. Halographic like no other,dead quiet,microphonics are non existant, super liquidity with incredible clarity,a silky sweet top end that floats into your room,the bass energy and drive of the kenrad vt-231 but far crisper and 3 times as tight. I use the cortese in my main system with my very efficient Tannoy Westminster's driven by VAC pa-90 monos employing the genelex kt-77 output tube. With the 6sn7's in the preamp I have very little room for play with the volume control whereby a single 6j5 is perfect for my application. I have unsoldered the other socket whereby I use only 1 6j5/channel."

You really got my attention with this post.

I have the gain on the "low" setting on my Chardonnay and I still can't turn the volume up past 9 o'clock. I would love detailed info on how to convert my Supratek to use the 7193.

I would appreciate any feedback you have time to provide.