2. amps-preamps
  3. 1093813413

Sonic Frontiers- Quality and Reliability?

The SF Line 1 and Line 2 intrigue me because they offer so many features- balanced in/out, headphone out(any good?), remote control, and so on. But, I've read a number of comments about the poor reliability of the Sonic Frontiers Preamps.

From you guys using this product, can you please advise me?

Is the Line 1 or 2 good sonically?
Is the headphone function decent?
How's the reliability?

Thanks in advance for your guidance!

Dan
danlib1
asonicyouth
120 posts
 
SF is where its at. i currently have the power 2. I screwed up putting in the tubes once and sent it back, got fixed no charge. Just good people.
rlips
105 posts
 
When I had my old Audio Research LS 16 sent to upgrade from MkI to MkII, my dealer loaned me a SF line 1.

To my ears, in my system, the SF Line 1 fell far short of the LS 16, less detail, and a total collapse of the soundstage. I even swapped out all six tubes, but it made little difference.

System at the time:

Martin Logan Ascents
Classe 301
Audioquest Diamond X3 XLR interconnects.

Needless to say, I was very happy to get the LS 16 back.

Just my 2 cents
sutts
668 posts
 
disagree with above- my modded SF Line 3 blows away my old ARC LS16 in all parameters...
semi
646 posts
 
And to add to Sutts experience, my Line 3 was better than ARC Ref 1 and I now own Line 3 SE which is even better. In fact, Line 2 "blew away" LS15 which was replaced by LS16.

Maybe it is system dependent, but SF Line series are known to be exceptional.
sutts
668 posts
 
...Heard the reference SF T3/P3 (Transport 3, or 'Iris', and Processor 3 with the proprietary 'Ultra-Analog' dacs and outboard power supply) digital combo a few weeks ago (original retail $16k USD for both pieces).

They are connected (optimally) through a special proprietary I2Se cable. we compared to ARC CD3MK2 and Sim Audio Eclipse LE, and the SF reference combo was clearly superior- low-level detail retrieval superior to both of the others, with a lower noise floor (although kudos to the Eclipse for this as well).

The ARC CD3MK2 had more 'jump' factor than the Eclipse, but we found it more 'edgy'. The Eclipse was smoother, even though it had a more 'Row K' perspective, which some may like (I don't mind that). The SF combo had the liveliness of the ARC CD3MK2 without the edginess, and dare I say a slightly more 'analog' signature to it. I have owned the Eclipse (along with AA Capitole; Meitner and many others), and the Eclipse is still my fav one-box player, but the SF T3/P3 combo has detail retrieval even the Eclipse doesnt' know about- high praise indeed...
More to discover