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Sonic Frontiers Line 2 or 1 compared to new SE

I've used and enjoyed an SF Line 2 for near 4 years, but my dealer has never had the SE versions either as demos or in stock, and I've not heard them. Are there some out there who have had the opportunity to compare the Line 2 (or Line 1) to the SE versions? And if so what did you think?

SF is now offering factory up-grades and I'm seriously considering having it done. Any observations or thoughts on these pre-amps and/or the SE versions. I see they are now putting 2 NOS Seimens and 4 Brimars in the SE versions (they ran out of Valvos). But I tried the Valvos in my stock Line 2 and found them to be too bloomy and diffuse for my taste and went back to the stock Sovteks. Thanks. Craig
garfish
buckingham
333 posts
 
Garfish, the local dealer in my home town has informed me that the SE versions are much better than the normal versions of line 1 and 2. I would also play around with NOS tubes in the meantime. I did the same thing here with the NOS tubes I got... I keep going back to the stock Electo-Harmonix tubes. Although I did leave those new Mullard CV4004's in there! If you have 12AX7's in there I would definitely listen to them. I got mine at www.kcanostubes.com
tfta
44 posts
 
Hi Garfish:

I've been a Sonic and Anthem dealer for some years now and am proud to tell you that I helped author the SE versions back in early '99. It all started with a few mods I'd requested from Chris Johnson, President of the company, and slowly snowballed from there. I was so thrilled with the outcome that I nearly begged him to offer either an 'SE' or 'Signature' version at some point. I sold a few of these to clients before an official nomenclature was added and they were thrilled! I think that persuaded Chris it was a good idea. BTW, the pre-'SE' owners are still loving their pre-amps today! While I've heard all three of the SE pre-amps, I'm only intimately familiar with the 3. I contend that it is one of the finest pre-amps available today for under $10,000. The SE's are faster, much more liquid and musical than their counterparts, have better extension top and bottom, better decay, a more solid soundstage image and a weightier and more tuneful bass. I had a full compliment of Seimans put in mine, which I prefered to the stock Sovteks. While I would certainly suggest you do the upgrade, I would more adamantly suggest you get yourself a Line 3 first and then upgrade that when you can. You can contact me on this if you'd like.

Sincerely,
Mario
jasonmcguire
25 posts
 
Garfish, I own a Line 1 SE. Kevin Deal at Upscale Audio gave me a great price and I love the unit. I think the 3 matched sets of Siemens tubes alone is worth the increase in price over the Line 1 standard. But there are numerous other serious parts uprgades too.
I don't know how much SF is asking for the upgrade, but it may be smarter to put the Line 2 up in a classified and at a high amount. See what you can get, because the going rate on a new Line 1 SE version will astound you. I can't believe the difference between a Line 1 and Line 2 is significant enough to consider a Line 2 SE. And I'll bet you can get pretty close to the amount needed for a new Line 1 SE from the classified.
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