The company recommends using the amplifier without the black tube cover for better ventilation it's provided as a sop to parents and pet-owners. The laboratory look starts with the satin-chrome chassis, a healthy 18in wide and 14.5in deep, standing 9in tall with the valve cage in place. The SFS-50 is a tube lover's vision, all function but without any rough edges. Sonic Frontiers sought his permission to incorporate some of his work and Joe lent a hand. Among his triumphs are some modifications to the Dynaco Stereo 70, the work reflected in the design of the SFS-50. Their collaborator is Joe Curcio, well-known to readers of the tube bible, Glass Audio, and one of the most highly-respected tube designers at work today. Which is why they offer their amps in kit form for a 30% saving.Įqually impressive is their choice of a 'semi' hired gun. Best of all, it appears that the guys at Sonic Frontiers have their hearts in the right place, admitting to being inspired by Dynaco's classic tube products. Considering that the country has been making great strides in high-end manufacture over the past decade – Classé, Oracle, Museatex and so on – the appeal was guaranteed. Sonic Frontiers, though, is not an American company.
SONIC FRONTIERS SFS 50 PLUS
And when we found out that they make 240V export versions, sell direct from the factory if you live in a country without a distributor, that the price is a mere $2195 in US funds (plus whatever it costs to ship 25kg), that they accept Mastercard and Visa and offer a five year warranty plus six months on the valves, well, we sort of owed it to you. So when the company offered to send one over to HFN/RR, despite the lack of a British presence, we couldn't say 'No'. What Sonic Frontiers offers is a mix of the good old fashioned virtues but with more grunt and more high-end applicability. The former lives on in the current range of Woodside descendants, the Dynaco is back in production and you can still find decent Quad IIs for sensible prices. In other words, I'll always champion an amplifier which comes across like a latter-day Radford STA-25, Quad II or Dynaco Stereo 70. But we just can't get enough of the utilitarian, no-frills work horses, the ones which seem to eschew the fairy dust. So varied is the current selection that you can find something from under #500 on up to #20,000, Class-A, Class-B and all points inbetween, monoblocks, stereo units, four-chassis set-ups, OTLs, hybrids – take your pick. It's not as if the world is shy of decent valve amplifiers. In the market for audiophile loudspeakers? Here are over 100 reviews from brands like Wilson Audio, THIEL, MartinLogan, Bowers & Wilkins, PSB, Vandersten, Magnepan and many more.Want to read audiophile stereo preamp reviews? We have dozens from brands like ARC, Krell, Classé and many more.Read about tubes on the Audiophile blog,.Read audiophile power amp reviews from the likes of Krell, Mark Levinson, Audio Research, Linn, Naim, VAC, VTL, NuForce, Pass Labs and many others here.On occasion, we make exceptions, and the Sonic Frontiers SFS-50 valve amplifier is the sort of product which qualifies as a special case. This time, it's our policy of not reviewing product without UK distribution.
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