Preamp Deal of the Century

Steve, come on... please! The Supratek's are NOT "high resolution" preamps capable of reproducing low level detail beyond what (almost) any decent (non-metalic or ceramic) speaker is capable of.

Personally, metallic and ceramic drivers are not my cup of tea. I cannot listen to them because they introduce a non-natural hardness to the music - I guess that can be perceived as "inner detail". If we assume that these types of transducers "bring out the detail" of the Supratek, I would have to disagree and suggest that they create an illusion of air and inner-detail because of their ringing, metallic composition.

Also remember there is a pair of interconnects, an amplifier and a pair of speaker cables between the Supratek and the speakers.

In order to really hear what a Supratek does you have to remove it from your system.

Get a record that starts off slow & quiet. Use Bolero or something like that.. then run your source directly to your amp and then tell me what you hear.... I am sure that will end the discussion about the Supratek's inner detail.

You may end up sending your preamp back to Mick.

Bwhite, I do not know what the vintage of my Cortese was, as I was the second owner. If I had to guess, I would say mid-2003. I suppose that I should have qualified my statements by saying that MY Cortese had these problems rather than generalizing.

As for the Janus, I have one of the earliest ones and have had no problems whatever. What evidence do you have that the later units do not sound as good as the earlier? FWIW, my experience doesn't match that. An audio buddy has a new Janus that we have auditioned in my system. I cannot tell the difference, except that his is ever so slightly quieter in the phono stage.

I checked the date on the feedback from my Cortese's first owner. I was wrong...bought the preamp from him in early 2003 and he said that had had it for about 8 months, so build date was early-mid 2002. Sorry about that.

Curriemt, sorry about your Cortese. There is not much I can do to help. From my experience, the Cortese is a much more solid unit and exhibits zero microphonics.

I respect Aesthetix. The IO Sig was my favorite phono stage of all I've owned. If you want my comments about the Janus please email me directly instead of in this forum.

Brian,

I'm not aware of what it is that has made you lose faith in Supratek, its probably just the fickleness of audiophilia or that you have suffered burn-out who knows? You are quite within you're rights to express these alternative views (as we all are), but you are just plain wrong about the statement that the Suprateks are somehow not hi-end.

IMHO (and with 25yrs experience of playing around with hi-fi), the Supratek Cortese and Cabernet would be placed among the BEST preamps ever created. I mean, you have people on the planet running their $130,000USD Avantegarde horns with the Supratek Cortese and loving it, if this doesn't say something about the high quality of the preamp nothing does!

I have tried passive devices and run directly to the CDP, and have not found these options to be better than my Supratek preamp. The music deadens and becomes lifeless and one dimensional when running passive. The Supratek preamp somehow picks up the signal and brings it alive, all full of clarity, emotion and realness - I can't explain it on any level of electrical theory, IT JUST DOES. There are things hidden in recordings that only the Supartek preamps seem to flesh out, the ambience of the venue, the spacial clues of the performers on a stage, the timbre, texture and long decay of instruments etc.

It's not for want of trying with passives either, as I have used the Mod Squad passive pre; Audio Synthesis Passion attenuator; D.A.C.T attenuator; and Sowter transformer pots. The direct to CDP route to me sounds a bit electronic (digitalised for want of a better word).

My initial comments about speaker quality and the hidden beauty of Supratek preamps was not meant to put anyone off-side. I was merely stating that if you have ultra hi-rez speakers you will truly know what your Suprateks are capable of. Perhaps those of you running electrostats with your Suprateks might want to chime in here...

Regards,

Steve.