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Groove Tubes SuPRE Explained By Mild-Mannered Groove Tubes Founder

October 10, 2008
Groove Tubes SuPRE 125th AES

The downright avuncular Groove Tubes founder Aspen Pittman talks to GW about the SuPRE, a dual-channel vacuum tube preamplifier that's been garnering some pretty high praise since it was introduced about a year and a half ago. The SuPRE is the front-end you've been hearing in all the Groove Tubes 125th AES videos -- the perfect match to Mr. Pittman's soothing basso vocals. Is it Aspen's resemblance to Burt Lancaster that makes me trust him . . . or is it the SuPRE?

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ASPEN PITTMAN: The SuPRE was designed to be an affordable -- Let's go down and talk about SuPRE for a minute. As you can see, it's got a nice classic VU Meter. We build every single switch, knob, and meter on this. It's built for this product. They're nothing off the shelf that I build. Every component in there is built for this. We have a very nice input transformer again that could be selectable from 300 to 1,200 ohms. We can also desensitize by changing the front-end gain structure. You can plug in a guitar here. You can switch from mic to instrument just like that, and so without disconnecting your microphone, you can plug it in here and use it for a bass track. Of course, we have a mute switch, a feature strangely missing on a lot of high-end microphone preamps that allows you to change that without -- change microphones basically without the pop and so forth, phase reverse, low pass filter, the basics are there. Inside, we have a completely pure class A tube chain that is, again, every component, every tube selected. That's what we've been doing all these years. The mono version, that's the ViPRE, which we got a Tech nomination for, and it's been used, you know, it's a $3,500 mono box. The request was, "Can you make me a stereo one," and up until the SuPRE, all we can do is sell you tube ViPREs. Now, we have a SuPRE which is scaled down version, a few less knobs and bells and whistles and the same basic beautiful pure class A tube differential stage gain stage, all tube, and it's $2,000 for a stereo channel, so streets for about -- you can probably buy this under $1,800, maybe under $1,700 on the street today for a stereo...

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