Sonic Frontiers Line Series, tubes-rolling

G'day All,

Having line 1 with 6 Sovtek tubes and need some advice on tube rolling. Very much appreciated if someone can advice me your 'perfect match' with brand(s) and position. Btw, i'm using ARC D300 and ProAc floor standing speakers.

Other queries such as:-
1. Shall we mix and match to optimize the performance (a lot of e.g. in Audiogon forum but all old posts)
2. Mullard E88CC vs. E188CC
3. Will there be sonic in different (beside longer life span) between tubes tested ~15mA vs. ~23mA

Thank you contributers!

I don't know which model you own but I owned a Sonic Frontiers Line 1 for about 3 years. When I had the piece I tried various tubes on them(stock Sovteks, Mullards and Amperex) and to my ears the differences are subtle to the point of negligible. To my ears the different tubes do not bring any appreciable difference when used with the Line 1 preamp.

There are many posts on Audiogon describing on the effects that different tubes are able to bring to preamps in general. In my experience the sonic character of the Sonic Frontiers Line 1 (and Audio Research LS16) does not change much with different tubes.

YMMV as usual.

ryders, mine is Line 1 too. Theoretically it should makes difference in sonic even with a single tube design. I have used silikon 'O-ring' too and it makes better sounding effect vs. w/o it. Do you cap all your unused RCA/XLR? I have capped mine with Telos. Well recommended. Worth spending.

Hi Scyllyt,
I did not do anything to the preamp other than swapping different tubes in it. I did try the O-ring on the tubes and it made a subtle difference. Again, to my ears the differences are very small. I wouldn't have bought a dozen of NOS tubes to try out should I have known about the results earlier.

I didn't try the Telos. I did read about the sonic benefits of the Telos caps. I don't have many RCA sockets on my preamp so I am afraid I can't try the Telos.

The Mullard E188C are amazing rich and lush sounding. I have a matched pair for one of my CDP. NOS that costed me about USD200 each.

Will look out for Mullard E188CC, thanks. Currently waiting a pair of Telefunken and Mullard E88CC to test from a kaki..