In the past, my preamps received criticism about the internal wiring.
In my opinion it came after my preamps were compared to other manufacturers product and were heard to be clearly superior.
The only recourse these manufacturers , and some miffed owners of other gear ( I guess it's not so much fun when your $25,000 pre gets blown away by something a tenth of the price) was to criticise the internal wiring of the Suprateks, which to be truthful did look a bit messy.
But there was a good reason for this : I built maybe a hundred prototypes before I decided to go into the audio manufacturing world , they were all point to point wiring, where every component is connected to another either by wiring it to a terminal or using it's own wire leadout. They are wrapped around the connecting terminal and then soldered.
In theory , the pre would work with no soldering at all, just the hard wired connection between each connection.
But all the commercial audio products used printed circuit boards (PCB's) so I had one designed and made for the first commercial Supratek linestage.
Very quick and easy to build but it didn't sound like a Supratek .
So I asked the PCB designer to do it again, with a different earth configuration , as I hoped that was the problem.
Still not nearly as good as the hard wired prototype. It was ok, but just not as dimensional and open as the hard-wired preamp. It sounded boring.
So I then tried a compromise between a PCB and hard-wiring with small stereo boards containing the electronics components and the signal and output wiring all hard-wired.
This was better but the magic was still not there- it was 90% , but that last 10% was what made the magic happen, and the prototype was still audibly superior.
I then got the idea in my head that it was the fact that all the connections in a PCB are connected by a small round dob of lead (Pb) rather than a direct wire wrap.
I decided then that I did not want anything to do with PCB's and would just have to hardwire the preamps and power amps.
And I'm not alone in that- there are plenty of manufacturers who hard wire , so I set out to rewire the preamp the way everyone else did it, with a grid of bundled wires folded into straight lines and right angle turns with lots of cable ties.
As an aside , back in the 1930/40's there was a clash between audio guys who wired "spaghetti" style and "new york street" style ( everything at right angles), so this is nothing new.
But this was still missing the magic - I dont know if its the small capacitances between the bundled wires, the considerably longer lengths , but the advantages of spaghetti wiring were certainly audible to my ears.
I keep coming back to talking about dimensionality , the 3D effect you get with good audio.
With PCB's it's diminished drastically, with bundled right angled wiring , much less so, but its still diminished .
I knew that spaghetti wiring is generally frowned upon, it does look messy and gets viewed as unprofessional, but I and others were clearly hearing that "spaghetti" was audibly superior.
To me its all about the sound quality, nothing more, nothing less.
I decided to do it my way, and a a result of that , my preamps got some pretty good reviews and I made a lot of people happy with their purchase of a Supratek.
That's when the criticism of the wiring started, and I could see it was going to be an issue that could polarise the situation.
Lets be clear- I could have made a lot more profit, and built many more preamps if I had used PCB's or bundled wiring.
It definitely affected some sales as the criticism did get through to some potential buyers .
But I like to think I stick to my ideals and I was, and still am 100% committed to getting the highest sound quality out of the preamps.
Point to point wiring may look a bit less "anal" but it actually provides the most direct route for a signal to travel. Unencumbered by length or the need to be on the same plane and direction.
I admire good engineering , and the Suprateks are a fine example of it, massive power supplies, expensive chassis and most important of all, a state of the art design that's focused on one thing only - the finest sound quality that can be got from a tube.
The $2000 Chardonnay linestage preamp has its own separate power supply, tube recification, tube shunt regulation (this is a big deal), a highly evolved circuit that will drive any power amp and exquisite looks to boot.
There is nothing comparable to it at this price, and yes it is completely handmade with internal wiring that would still attract criticism from the anal audiophiles that seem to care more about this than how it sounds.
The other issue is reliability. PCB's have all the resistors , sockets and other heat generating parts all stacked on the same plane and in close proximity to each other - PCB's get hot and heat is the number one enemy of reliability.
All of the "spaghetti" wired Suprateks are still going strong , some are nearly 20 years old, and some are on original tubes.
And if something does go wrong it's a hell of a lot easier to fix than having to remove a PCB or unbundle a heap of wires.
Having said all this, over the years I have changed the wiring - lots of built preamps, and the experience that comes with it has resulted in minimising the wiring , getting the lengths between components even shorter and more direct.
I know there will be still be some who think it "untidy" - sorry but your ideals about what is important about audio are different to mine.
Below is a pix of the inside of a phono/linestage preamp. It has 6 tubes and 8 transformers which are positioned in place with a heat resistant adhesive. Notice how close to each other the components are, there's a direct solid connection between each part that forms a flow of the circuit with minimal disruption and maximum effect.
The signal and output wiring is still to go in, but its all as direct and short as possible .
I know this wont be the end of the criticism, some audiophiles are focused on what they've been told and nothing can be done about that.
I'll continue to do it my way, which I believe delivers the finest sound and reliability.
Chardonnay Line Stage , comes with matching power supply $US2000
www.supratek.com.au
