It's circuit topology is fully differential from input to output. But, if my gut feeling is right, it does, given the right size room.Įven in my limited listening space, I'm very satisfied with its performance. Spreading my speakers beyond 5½ feet & 6 feet from the front wall so I can't say for sure whether It is very transparent, so if the info is in the recording, you'll hear it. But, if one is seeking neutrality, then the SF "euphonic" sound of tubes, they will be disappointed. From the midrange to the highs, thiscomponent is neutral with only a hint of tube glow and warmth. So, you really can get a quality tube preamp with solid customer service at a reasonable price.įor a tube preamp, the LINE 1 has the tightest bass ever. I'd also like to comment, like many before me, that the remote is great-very intuitive and comfortable (it's shaped like a hockey puck), and useful.Īnyway, it appears as if these are selling for about $1000 in the used market these days. The only thing that isn't great is the soundstage which probably has nothing to do with the preamp, but instead room dynamics and speaker placement (which I can't do much about). I haven't auditioned anything else in the room as we moved-in recently, but I can say that the sound is full and realistic. While the preamp was being repaired I bought some new NOS tubes (can't remember specifics) from Kevin at UpscaleAudio (highly recommended).Īnyway the preamp sounds great coupled with my McCormack DNA-1 Deluxe. SF happily did the warranty repair of the volume knob in a reasonable amount of time. Unfortunately, it arrived with a non-working volume knob and old stock tubes that needed replacement. I bought the preamp as a demo from a high-end retailer that was changing its business model. I just wanted to chime in and say that I'm another very happy SF Line-1 owner. Have given this a 4.5 for value and a 4 overall. If it weren't for my experience with the transformer, I'd The remote is cool, the built-in headphoneĪmp works well, the balanced inputs and outputs mean the Sound overwarmed like other tubed products. It's a feature-rich and intelligent preamp that does not Notch when using this preamp versus the AR. Preamps) and its long warmup routine (40 seconds from While it was running, I was generally happy with it, exceptįor its bass handling (in comparison to the AR and C-J Limited warranty and will cost roughly $300 to fix, all Three of the 4Ĭomponents above are connected to the same conditioner andĪppear to be fine. To find out that the power transformer shorted out and they Only after repeated phone calls have I managed Sonic Frontiers and six weeks later I have still not After 10 months of fairly regular use, my Line 1 refused
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