[Phil]

You know when you start listening to discs that haven’t seen the light of day in a year that something great just happened to your system.  The reason for my new listening habits is an extraordinarily musical line stage, the Supratek Chardonnay, handmade in Western Australia by Michael Maloney  – www.supratek.biz .

The Chardonnay has the strengths of a passive volume control (transparency) and that of an active line stage (dynamic range, three dimensional images).  The presentation is “intimate,” organic and very alive, with no sharp edges (unless the recording actually has them – as do some very early all-digital CDs); it does not produce fatigue – in fact it is a fatigue reducer as it draws you into the music.  

This line stage does no harm to the delicacy of music and it comes by its resolution honestly – it doesn’t hype particular frequencies: music emerges naturally out of the speakers instead of sounding like it is being shot out of a cannon.  An “overall sense of ease” perhaps best describes
the combination of all its many qualities.  (On the other hand, I have not detected any
weaknesses).

Perusing one of the longest threads in audio forum history,
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1016931418&openflup&417&4#417, it is clear that the Supratek preamps mate well with a very diverse group of components (with, for
example, ss, tubed and digital amps).  Not sure about the whole tube thing?  This baby is plug-n-play.  It took more time to extract it from its very secure packing than to plug one tube in the power supply unit and connect it to the main unit.  The tubes don’t throw off much heat at all
and that is probably the reason for the predicted long life of the tubes.  The Chardonnay is very well-built and both in terms of musical capability and looks it is not a me-too product – this is an original.

I could go on and on because of the musical transformation one change has made and because Mick is not only a gifted designer/builder but also a good guy who is a pleasure to do business with.  So, does the US-Australian conversion rate plus no dealer markup mean that a $2,100 line
stage is really a $5 - $6,000 line stage?  Sounds like it.  This has to be one of the great deals in audio.

[guest1632]

You know when you start listening to discs that haven’t seen the light of day in a year that something great just happened to your system.  The reason for my new listening habits is an extraordinarily musical line stage, the Supratek Chardonnay, handmade in Western Australia by Michael Maloney  – www.supratek.biz .

The Chardonnay has the strengths of a passive volume control (transparency) and that of an active line stage (dynamic range, three dimensional images).  The presentation is “intimate,” ...

 Now, that would seem like this could be good for a shootout between this preamp and the Van alsteen.

[Phil]

Ray,
That would indeed be an interesting comparison.  Both companies stress the importance of the preamp as the heart of a system (and both also make amplifiers).  I was considering a Van Alsteen preamp but reading the reviews on Audiogon convinced me to try the Supratek.  There are some great deals out in audioland.

phil

[guest1632]

Ray,
That would indeed be an interesting comparison.  Both companies stress  importance of the preamp as the heart of a system (and both also make amplifiers).  I was considering a Van Alsteen preamp but reading the reviews on Audiogon convinced me to try the Supratek.  There are some great deals out in audioland.

phil