Pimpin a Pretek

[RochaCullen]

Hey All,

I know its not a very well regarded preamp on this forum, but I've just bagged myself an old Linn Pretek. I got it for a very good price, so I thought I would give it a whirl. I have been looking for a preamp to go with my gainclone monoblocks for a wee while now.

First impressions are that its certainly very large :lol:, and that the the MC phono stage alone is worth the price I paid for it. I think a cambridge audio 640p could be on the market very soon. The pretek came with a powertek power amp, which I hooked up for five minutes. I very quickly swapped the gainclones back in as the powertek lacked dynamics.

The pretek supplies plenty of gain; I barely have the dial at 3 o'clock whilst playing CDs.

The bass has increased, but is slightly less defined.

So I was wondering if there were any mods I could perform to up the performance of this much berated preamp. This was part of my reason for purchase, to get myself a preamp that didn't break the bank and, to which, I could take a soldering iron without my backside puckering for fear of doing something wrong. With this in mind I opened it up last night for a gander, and I saw there were plenty of blackgate caps, which I can only assume is a good thing. But as I am only a paint by numbers DIYer, I will take a couple of nudey shots tonight to aid those who would suggest some simple mods.

I would also love to hear from any pretek owners who have setup suggestions.

Nathan :cool:

[DSJR]

We had enough of the Intek all-in-one and I don't remember ever separating the pre and power Tek models to try in isolation. The power amp was indeed the weakest link there and nothing short of a total re-design will fix it's shortcomings I believe.

The preamp though, may be another matter, but unless you can get a circuit diagram, I think you'll be limited to swapping out bits and bobs here and there.

Perhaps you could start with the line stage and wiring to and from the swiches? Black Gates eh - who'd have thunk it :eyebrows: maybe they were cheap back then?

[RochaCullen]

Took Pretek off the rack last night and removed the cover to take a few shots, but the silly camera would not focus. Probably something to do with the lighting. I'll have another crack at it in a couple of days.

[Audioflyer]

I don't know if this will help but this is based on the Intek phonostage.
It the same thing in the Pretek.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/60527312@N06/5523747998/

Sharif.

[RochaCullen]

Hey All,

I used the pretek for a few days, but decided that the bass was a little too ill-defined, so swapped it out for my old Majik.

Is it possible to rectify a lack of bass definition???

Piccy of the inside, forgive the quality of the photo my camera is kak:

Nudy shot of the pretek:

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/zz230/rochaCullen/Pretek/SSL21371.jpg

Phonostage:

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/zz230/rochaCullen/Pretek/SSL21373.jpg