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

Showing 2 responses by sutts

sutts
697 posts
 
disagree with above- my modded SF Line 3 blows away my old ARC LS16 in all parameters...
sutts
697 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...
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