Its one of the older 300B designs, about 10 years old now .
I had it back to do a little mod on it, and it still sounds great, especially with the LCR phono design.
The little bit of DHT warmth sounds very nice in the right system.
This 300B design was the early type direct coupled from the 6SN7 driver tube.
Later on I went to a different design that enabled a little more definition , but the direct coupled designs had excellent phase performance which resulted in exemplary imaging.
In truth, even 10 years later the Supratek sound is one of a kind and all of the diferent versions have a very similar sonic signature. Accurate tone and superb soundstaging and imaging.
The beauty of this design is that it could use multiple output tubes- 300B, 45, or PX4.
It had a switch to set different filament voltages and a servo to set the required plate voltage.
Servos can be problematic sometimes, but this one was relatively simple , and has been reliable and problem free over its lifetime, and will continue to be. It ensures that the output tube always sees the correct plate voltage, even as tubes age, etc.
Here's a pix of the stock 300B preamp
and a pix of it with 45 output tubes and vintage 6F8G/VT-99 tubes.
Different sound, slightly more natural sounding, more open and a bit more dynamic but still highly defined and very 3D like. Very expensive Emmission Lab 45's though, you'd expect a good result.
10 years on, a very capable and excellent sounding preamp, as good as the day it was made.
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