Preamp Deal of the Century

Hi Gang. Mustang... Ahmen and well said! Lugnut... "you got mail".....Simon....If you can ascertain the vintages of the good singles you have I would most likely have a mate for any one of them. Feel free to email me. Just catching up on the thread here as I recently experienced a full scale computer crash, I am a certified knucklehead with these damned computers. AHHHHHH!. For those without a tube tester or do not have a trusted source for nos tubes.... the EH 6sn7 is a very synergistic tube for line gain in the supratek's and really a no brainer. I have been running in a pair in my Syrah [about 40+ hours] and am more than a little suprised at how good they really work in the curcuit, they sound considerably better after the 24 hour mark. Gotta go now.. cheers

Hi Guys, thanks for that. I didn't exactly skimp on the price of some of tubes.I have had a few free replacements but not much luck with these either.
I kind of get the impression that a good set of readings can be fairly meaningless unless someone actually listens to the tubes?
No one tried to rip me of, the tubes were all tested, how well I'm not sure. It just gets tedious putting in new tubes which sound lovely, only to find one is usually too noisy to be bearable or else tries to kill my speakers.
I'm thinking of doing a bit sculpture/artwork along the lines of the NOS tubes graveyard, should look quite cool !
Simon

Simon, FWIW the Sylvania 1958 6SN7WGT Chrome Top is a killer tube. One of my favs. Good luck.

For Berning & Supratek users:

I recently removed one pair of my TF ECC 801s in my Berning ZH270 and replaced them with a pair of 60's Mullard 12AT7s from Andy.

I also just put a new EG Epiphany on my Berning.

The Epiphany is amazingly transparent, but I am getting a hardness in the upper midrange and treble that wasn't there before.

It could be just a break-in issue of the tubes and/or the Epiphany. I only have about 20 hours of playing time on each and probably about 100 hours of idle time on each.

I can be patient during break-in, but if anyone can confirm that the Epiphany or the Mullards may possess the hardness I am hearing, I will simply remove the offending piece from my system.

Thanks in advance.

Hi Simon,

I have reading this thread and learning from it for quite sometime. I have my Chardonnay about 1 year ago, purchased from Mick. After a year of listening and tube rolling, I think I can give a bit of my humble opinion for those interested. Firstly, I think Chardonnay is not the last word of resolution (who need that?) but a very enjoyable preamp. Secondly, I think it does not have a sound of its own, but it is a playground of tube rolling (my previous preamp was Nagra PLP, which I have tried tube rolling only a couple of times). You hear the sound of different tubes, not the sound of the preamp itself. I am using a Emmlabs/ DAC6e front end, a 300B SET mono amp and Kharma 1.1 at the moment. My speakers were Watt/puppy 6 two months ago but Kharma is a notch better in terms of mid/ high resolution so that I am hearing more difference in tubes now. I have tried certain 6SN7 including Slyvania, tungsol, RCA red base 5692, CBS hydron 5692 etc but I am now using the stocked EH 6SN7. For this position, I think the EH does a very fine job in providing a well balanced sound with reasonable refinement. It has better bass than most tubes I have tried. Some may have a more refined high but none have a more balanced sound except the GE side-getter which I think is the best buy NOS. If you use EH 6SN7 with the stocked Sovtek 5881 (in my Chardonnay), you will get enlarged focus, coarse sound with diminished air. It will be fun to fiddle with the regulators then. I have tried differnt brand of 6F6G recommended in this thread and they are fine in this position. I personally prefer Visseaux to Sylvania for better high frequency performance but I am sure if your can find one. I have tried Miniwatt 6F6G but they are inferior to Sylvania. For the moment, I am using Sylvania 5881 for this position for a more solid bass performance and more realistic texture (especially piano), sacrifying a little air comparing with Visseaux 6F6G. I have also tried some KT66 in this position but they sounded superficial (brilliant but without a solid ground). Forget to mention, I am using a Fulmusic mesh plate 274B in place of rectifier. It improves the resolution of the preamp a lot (don't use the gray plate Fulmusic 274B, the resolution is much inferior). But I have to admit that I have not tried WE 274B or Philips metal base 5AR4. I have tried Mullard 5AR4 which seems to have a floppy bass and too syrupy for my liking.

Lastly I must say sound is very much system dependent and personal taste is very personal. You can only try it in your system to see whether it suits you or not.

YWLee