Plugging in headphones mutes the amplifier outputs, but if you hit the mute button again it will mute the headphones as well. There are a lot of nice little features that show an attention to detail. It does just about everything the front panel buttons do, except you have to cycle through inputs instead of direct-access selection, not really a big deal for me. The remote is super-cool, a solid aluminum disc that fits the palm of your hand. You can adjust the brightness of the display, which is nice for watching movies. Volume is read out as two numbers, one for each channel. You can set a default volume level for each input, a really useful feature. That's it, and that's all I really want when listening to two-channel. You get volume, balance, phase, mono/stereo and mute. It works really well, and the amp is powerful enough to play my Sennheiser HD-580's & HD-414II's painfully loud, or, at normal listening levels, with plenty of bass.Ĭontrols are pretty bare-bones, again as to be expected with a high end preamp. Headroom processing makes it sound like you are hearing the sound from in front of you, instead of on the extreme left and right, as if you are listening to speakers. The preamp has a Headroom amplifier built into it, which I was really excited about. There are plenty of inputs: 4 single-ended RCA, 2 balanced XLR, a tape loop, and a SSP input for surround processors that bypasses the volume and balance controls. The stock power cables (which is farily heavy-duty) seems to supply AC to the unit just fine for me :) The power cable is seperate with an IEC socket if you are in to fancy power cables. I build my own interconnects and they aren't connected at all so not a problem for me. The RCA & XLR connectors on the back are spaced well apart, which may be a problem with some interconnects that don't split apart very far. The Line 1 is built pretty solid, as is to be expected for a $2.5K retail piece of audio hardware. I ended up selecting the Line 1 because it had a few more inputs and a remote, I'll be building a seperate phono stage for fun :) They were both running about $1000 used on Audiogon & eBay, with the GFP running around $600. The GFP-565 didn't have too many inputs, and also no remote. The SP-14 had a great phono section, but it didn't have a remote or headphone output. I was bouncing between the Audio Research SP-14, Sonic Frontiers Line 1, and Adcom GFP-565. I was looking around for a good preamp a few years ago, my requirements were the following: Thanks.Model: Line 1 Category: Preamplifier (Tube) Suggested Retail Price: $2600.00 Description: Tube Preamp Manufacturer URL: Sonic Frontiers Model Picture: View More later on those mystery tubes after I get a translator involved. Anyhow, in addition to advice on a fresh set, any advice on the tubes I do have would also be greatly appreciated. I’m also assuming zero hours on any of them. They are all in their original packages (3) unopened, (1) open, probably for inspection. The manufacturer appears to be Russian but as I do not read Russian, I just don’t know. Additionally, I have (4) mystery i/o tubes. I also have a matched pair of Sovtek 6922’s. I have (2) of the original (4) Gold Aero 6DJ8’s. I also have matched pairs of Svetlana E元4’s, they appear to be Svetlana’s “Mullard” copies. I have the original matched pairs of Gold Aero E元4’s. I have no idea how many hours are on any of these tubes. The amplifier did come with (2) complete tube complements. I am open to either tube complements based on the stock E元4/6DJ8 setup, or any of the optional tube complements. I am looking for advice on good “new” or “new old stock” tube complements fitting within a $300 budget. It will probably be powering a pair of B&W 805’s, but I need to break in this amp and engage in some in-home listening room demo sessions before any final decisions. I recently acquired a Sonic Frontiers SFS 40.
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