Preamp Deal of the Century

Congratulations Saint,
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As mentioned previously by Abe, you are in for a great ride.
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Do be patient and thoroughly break in the stock tubes before playing around with tube rolling. I think you are looking at more like 200 hours to get to the point that they have completely settled in. You will be quite surprised how much the sound improves during break-in. Also try to change out only one position at a time and live with that change for a while. Resist the urge to change several positions quickly. You really want to know what effect and change each tube/position yields.
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There is also a lot to be said for really getting to know the sound of the unit and the stock tubes before you start creating a new sound.
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In my system I have found that in the line stage side the Mullard EL 37 - Philips Miniwatt / Mullard GZ 34 Miniwatt and Tungsol Black Glass Round Plate 6sn7 have been magical and well worth extra money.

I have not cranked up the phono stage as of yet so I cannot help much there.
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Good Luck and enjoy it !
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Larry
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There's a RAVE review of the Chardonnay on 6 moons (the reviewer bought it). As if it wasn't a long wait before. I wonder what the review would have been like if he'd gotten one with a phono stage?

I have not previously posted to this thread, but I have been following it closely. Based in large part on the insightful posts here, I ordered a Chenin last week. Anyway, I wanted to let everyone know that there was an extremely positive review of the Chardonnay published by 6 Moons in the last couple of days. Here is the link in case you are interested: http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/supratek/chardonnay.html

From the looks of it the Chardonnay looks to be a Syrah minus the phono stage, which was the best part of the Syrah.

Saint,
How long have you been waiting?
I have sent my downpayment on the beginning of March.