I have been bite by this "stupid" and "devilish" audiophile buy for the last 30 years. Most of the so-called audiophile brand name such as Audio Research, Conrad-Johnson, BAT, Pass, Krell, etc. have been listened fore disregarded. Finally settle down to an AudioNote 9 watts Singel Ended Triode yet fall in love with panel speakers. Magnepan especially. While, Martin Logan, Soundlab and Sanders are in the same group. Once you have listened to the panels and you will never go back to the boxes.
This Sonic Frontiers Power 3 is a SSE+ version with AudioNote capacitors installed as well as all other possible passive parts upgraded.
Comparing to some very expensive equipments, for example, Wilson, McIntosh, B&W 801 which with a price tag of over $200,000 and to my ears, there is absolutely no comparison.
For reference purpose, I attain concert regularly and play violin too. My ear can certainly distinguish a "real" violin and piano sound like.
My system is currently as: Linn LP12, Sony CD, Meridian DAC, Canary CA-901 preamplifier, SF Power 3 and Magnepan 3.6

Bottom line - Brings me closer to reality. An absoulte incredible bargain on the used market. Grab a pr if you find them. I had mine for sale because they wouldn't fit, but I withdrew them now that I have re-arragned the room for the sole purpose of keeping them.

They'll give you a hernia! Costly near org retail (I bought when they were on the mkt about a year).

I originally had Infinity Betas which I always ran with quality solid state amps. Everyone kept telling me as good as they sounded I really had never heard them if I hadn't heard them with tubes. My dealer talked me into auditioning the Pwr 3s. I used them on the panels, driving the woofer cols with SS monos. What a startling difference. The Betas went from competently impressive to Ohmygod stunning! Everyone commented on how incredible they sounded. I bought the Pwr 3s and before I had a chance to listen more that a few weeks, I got a job and they went into storage. When I finally got resettled in NM more than a yr later, I had sold the Betas and purchased Revel Salon Ultimas. Once again the Pwr 3's made them come alive. I had heard the Salons on the ML 33's, so I was expecting a step down, but it didn't happen. The presentation was more forward but the delicate detail, deep soundstage, inky blackness and goosebump inducing vocals were all still present. I was estatic. Even when driving the Salons full-range, the base was solid and tight. Overall I've been truly impressed with the ability of these amps. I'm a belivever of the viture of high-power, neutrally-voiced tube amps. A solid 5 in sound and satisfaction.

Similar Products Used:

Krell, Musical Fidelity, Aragon, Levinson

Clean, effortless music ability

Can't be remote switched, unreliable

See my Sonic Frontiers Line 3 review for overall details.

In short, the Power 3 (with Line 3 and Genesis 200) is a
rapturous component of the system; I can't tell you how
just a Power 3 sounds by itself (pretty quiet, actually,
and rather warm), as I bought it and the Line 3 together,
and didn't really bother much mixing/matching of components.

There has been some trade comment about lean on the bass.
I can't comment to that; the Genesis 200 has its own set
of bass servo amps for the bass towers, the Power 3 is only
on the midrange/treble drivers. Basically, the amp just
gets out the way and lets the music flow, it doesn't seem
to do much of anything of its own (other than obviously
convert milliwatts of input to watts of output). I can think
of little better praise than that. I'm listening to the
music now, and not a system trying to reproduce music.

The Power 3 (at least mine, in my environment) seemed to be
awfully sensitive to unbalanced inputs (lot of noise, and
not just hum), but with balanced cables from Line 3 to Power
3's, quiet as can be; just the slightest tube ("thermionic")
hiss when you press your eardrum up against the mid/treble
driver panel, inaudible from a few steps away.

The amps (at least mine) were also very sensitive to the
incoming line voltage, going from under-biased (according
to bias-adjust LEDs green) to over-biased (according to the
bias-adjust LEDs red) with just a few volts difference on
the input voltage (from 116VAC to 120VAC). And yes, this was
after a few months for them to "break in". I finally sprung
for a line voltage regulator (Furman AC-PRO) to lock the
line voltage at 120V, and the bias now holds steady. This
seems like awfully sensitive/nervous "thoroughbred" beha-
vior to expect from $10,000 electronics, but that's a minor
niggle.

Unfortunately, I am forced to severely downgrade my overall
rating of the Sonic Frontiers equipment on the basis of its
demonstrated reliability. The Line 3 was DOA (bad voltage
regulator -- one of the drawbacks of having a thousand
separate regulators to regulate everything perfectly is
that you have a thousand things any one of which can take
the whole shebang down); there went 3 weeks shipping the
unit internationally (just Canada, but still) while my
system was down. After 5 months one of the Power 3's blew up
(when a Power 3 blows, it's a memorable -- adrenaline-
producing -- event as it attempts to throw the speaker
drivers at you, and fills the air with vaporized component).
There's another 3 weeks shipping and waiting with the system
down. Got it back, about 5 months later it blew again. I'm
at 3 weeks and waiting -- SF doesn't even have the component
(cathode resister) in stock, and can't get any. So in the
year I've had the SF gear, I've accumulated over 2 months
downtime (not to mention shipping charges and hernia repair
bills -- those Power 3's are *heavy*). Rather ironically,
the SFT-1 CD that I bought used over the net has worked
flawlessly for almost 2 years now. So as much as I am en-
raptured by the overall gestaldt of the Line3/Power3/Genesis
200 system, I am forced to say the weeks of downtime every
few months ruins it for me. It's five (possibly even six)
star equipment when it works.

Similar Products Used:

Crown PSA-2DX

Huge endless power and that fantastic sound!

None yet!

Simple and sweet, this is why you buy big tube amps. I have this amp playing with my SF Line 3 and the soundstage is as big as any I have heard.

How anyone could rate this amp 1 star is ridiculous. Frustration is one thing, but be fair. Huge monoblock tube amps just don't sound better than this.

I think the best part of listening to these amp is that they do not add anything to the sound, they just provide sweet tube amplification of the signal it receives. And isn't that what amplification should do?

If you have the money, these are great. I don't know about and hum or hiss that other's talk about...mine are just quiet. you don't hear them or anything at all....just music. I have found audio nirvana in the SF Power 3 monoblocks.

Good luck in your search.....

Just got these monster tube amps few month ago. They replaced my ARC VT-100 which was impeccable in every way. But needed a bigger amp to drive my SF Extrema. Tried a handful of solid state gears, they just drove me out of the house faster than I can switch them off. Chose the SF Power 3 over ARC VT-200 because of the exposed tubes and there is no fan noise.
In the beginning, SF Power 3 sounded lean and boring. I started to wonder if I made the right choice. But months had gone by and I realize one thing - SF Power 3 is actually more neutral than ARC VT-100. Yes, it does not draw you into the music as quickly, but it does alter music as much either.

The inner details are worth mentioning. There are lots of details that I never heard with VT-100. They don't draw attentions like some solid states with too much details. They are there if you want them.

High is actually not as refined as ARC. But very high standard. Mid is slightly leaner, but much faster in responding to change in music. ARC sounded a little slow in lower mid.

Bottom end rivals Krell. That is quite a complement for a tube amps. But most people buy tube amps to reproduce music, not to get punchy bass. So it's just a bonus.

Buy the Power 2 if you don't want to spend this much money. They sound the same if theory. There often are used one in the market.

everything

cost?

Has Stereophile gone insane? So SF Power 3 does not produce as much dynamic as VTL Ichiban and that's a surprise? That's like saying your Acura NSX does not have low end torque like my Dodge Viper so it sucks! VTL is one of the most colored and bad sounding tube gears and he proclaimed SF Power 3 sucks because it does not sound like his VTL. I am sure all the owners will agree SF Power 3 will rival anything on earth, tube or solid state. The truth is out there.

Similar Products Used:

ARC, Classe, Levinson, Krell

Accurate sound reproduction, zero coloration, power without distortion, robust, quality construction.

Sound is so accurate it makes some inferior recordings / artists sound bad. Low end is not it's strength (like most tubes). Not as warm as the other Sonic Frontiers AMPs at low volumes. It does not seem to put out the power that is claimed. Some minor electrical gremlins. Cost is high (if bought new).

Let me start out by saying a am a newly converted Tube Amp fan.........atic :-) I love the warm sounds of Tubes. Sure I miss some of the bass but the smooth sound more than makes up for it.

I first listened to the Sonic Frontiers Power 1 (55W per channel). I loved the sound. It had some coloration but I liked it (I know, this is not the idea of high end audio). I needed a bit more power than the Power 1s and found a great deal on the Power 3s.

The Power 3s do not sound like the Power 1s. They have no coloration at all. They reproduce music so realistically that I have had to relearn how music should really sound.
Listen to a live orchestra. You do not hear booming bass. There is no doubt you are in a large hall. You can hear the seperate and distinct instruments and their placements without trying. The Power 3 does this very well (even for my untrained ears). They make almost no noise or hum at all. After some time with these amps, SS amps make my ears hurt. They are wonderful instruments that are very sturdy (140 lbs per monoblock - the UPS guy was not happy).

Now my complaints. They are not as warm at low volumes as I would have hoped. I think this is because they dialed all of the color out of the sound. They are so accurate you might not always like what you hear. When you really open these up, you can really hear who has a good voice and who does not (i.e. Kathleen Battle does...Jewel does not...sorry). The amps easily get out of bias. Sometimes lights go on or off when they should not. At 220W per monoblock, they are not as loud as you might imagine. I believe part of this is because they are so distortion free (and your ears often mistake distortion for loudness).

All in all, I am very happy with the amps and would recommend them. When it comes time to replace tubes I may experiment with different setups to offer more warmth and bass.

jts

Other equiptment used: Proceed CDP CD player (also used as a digital preamp),Thiel CS 2.3s loudspeakers, D.H. Labs Silver Sonic Q-10 4 foot speaker cables, 1 meter RCA interconnects.

I am going to try using speaker spikes and balanced inputs at some time and will let you know if this makes a difference.

Similar Products Used:

Sonic Frontiers Power 1, Sonic Frontiers Power 2, Conrad Johnson Tube AMP, Several Krell SS AMPs

Neutral, clean, and non fatique

Blew one tube once,and standby switch gave up,

I use the Power 3 to drive THiel 3.6, and the match is great. THis amp replaced the BAT VK60 I use to have because the bass was a little 'muddy' as many who us the THiel 3.6 will know. No problem with the Power 3. My pre-amp is the ARC Ref 1, which drives the Power 3 really well. Recently added the Sony 777 SCD player, and I am really enjoying my music.

Similar Products Used:

Mark Levinson 333

Sweet, natural sound. Dynamics

Not as sharp as solid state amps.

I upgraded my old Krell 300s to this amps, so that it matchs my SF Line 3 better. While comparing to the Krell 300s, I am quite surprised that it actually provides more inner details (I hear things I haven't heard before), all details are there, but just don't jump on you. The soundstage is very natural. The dynamics and the bass is good for a tube amp, but still can't match a solid state amp. As with most SF products, it is quite neutral.

BTW, I haven't read the Stereophile review, but I did notice that they always like VTL. I auditioned VTL pre-amp when I purchased my SF Line 3, there is no comparison, the VTL pre-amp sounds harsh and narrow.

Overall, I would give Power III 9 out of 10. It is not perfect but still very good indeed.

Similar Products Used:

Krell 300s, Rowland 8