It had a degree of veiling that meant that saxophones, for example, lost their metal. I started listening to the SFC-1 using the CD input and was rewarded with a relaxed, open and polished sound that lacked bite and dynamics. Sonic Frontiers started out selling designer components and the SFC-1’s guts are replete with Holco resistors, MIT multicaps and Gold Aero tubes. It has user adjustable bias, easy style, tape out and tasty PCB mounted phonos. By British tube standards it has an abundance of them six line inputs, including one called ’direct’ that bypasses the selector, mute/operate and mono/stereo switches as well as balance. Just don’t try to stick it onto anything but the most accommodating equipment rack.įacilities are what really sets the SFC-1 apart. It’s easily the biggest amp in this test, but whether that’s a good thing is a matter of opinion. This is an amp for serious music lovers with financial restrainsĭpa T1 transport, Dpa 1024 Dac, Diy Watt/Puppy CLONES, Discovery 1-2-3 8' speaker cables, Kimber Pbj Ic's, API 313 pc,s on amp and transport.A ll the way from Canada, the slick and puiposeful Sonic Frontiers SFC-1 is the only foreign body in this cosy group. The output tubes can be biased easily via flat-head screwdriver from the back externally accessible adjustment controls.
#Sonic frontiers tube amplifier free#
Its construction and parts quality are first rate assuring long term trouble free ownership, aside from the usual need to periodically replace tubes. It is truly musical and assertive amp without colorations of classical tube amp.It can use different output tubes from E元4s, 6550s to KT90s. However transparency, micro dynamics and imaging are much more obvious SFC-1 strenghts.Īfter having Sonic Frontiers SFC-1 more than two years, I have come to conclude that it is one of the most underestimated amps in the high end used equipment market. The CJ Cav-50 outperforms the SFC-1 in terms of soundstaging and grandeur. It's soundstage is however a tad less spacious on the sides and not as deep in the middle, hence the instruments seem to emanate from a darker space. The SFC-1 casts a more dynamic presentation than the Cav-50. It captures the steely reverberations of Metal Darbuga, acceleration and deceleration of Indian Cymbals, texture and content of Begona's voice that it sometimes feels like live presence of vocalist im my room. They are such powerful melodies with a wealth of unusual instruments that that despite the age of the amplifiers design (1990) one immediately senses that the SFC-1 is a special amp. The SFC-1 portrayed the various musical pictures with fabulous palette of emotional colors.Īnother CD's that I continue to be fond of Calamus The Splendor of Al-Andalus and Mudejar, Begona Olavide both on MA Recording. Same with, Hungarian Rhapsodies (Philips 456 570-2) Sound was colorful and uplifting. 4(Naxos 8.554128)is so bold and powerful in both concept and rendition. In fact, it is better than all Integrated amps i auditioned. It does not have the quickness and impeccable speaker control of the Krell CAV-150 nor its ability to establish a solid bottom foundation. On the other hand, the SFC-1 sound is smoother, more delicate and truthful to the music. The coolness of the notes is quickly recognizable, including the occasional sibilance. When listening to the Krell Cav 150, one immediately knows that this is a solid state amp. The SFC-1 on the other hand possessed no such trait. At the same time, the Cav-50 also had a sweetness in the top end, one that is akin to the stereotypes of a old fashionable tube amp, an coloration of its "ancient" circuitry, I suspect. For example, when listening to the CJ-Cav 50, I had noted at the time from some of my memory that it's ability to present the grandeur and scale of music was enveloping. SFC-1 In my humble opinion, does not particularly call attention to itself.
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