Sunfire Theater Gand II vs. B&K Ref. 30?

Hi Jeff,

I am not familiar with the B&K, but I do own the Sunfire TG II. I am very happy with this preamp.

The two things I do miss with the TG II are:
1) You can't listen to one source while recording another.

2) The analog inputs are not 5.1, making this difficult to use with an external DVD-Audio or SACD player. The TG III (the current model) remedies this problem. This one really hurts since I have a ModWright modified Pioneer 38a player which has better sound quality than the DAC in the Sunfire and can't use it for multichannel.

Good things about the sunfire.
1) Easy to use with good WAF.

2) Support has been very good the one time I have needed them (Not an equipment malfunction, it was a problem with the original order).

3) They appear to be adopting a model of allowing upgrades from model to model for less than full sticker price. The TG I - TG II upgrade was around 1000, the TG II to TG III will be around 1800. I don't know if they will be doing this in the future, but I'm betting on it. Since I have seen a lot of good AV preamps which became obsolete since they didn't support the latest formats and features, this was a very attractive feature to me.

I apologize for not being able to answer the exact question you asked and hope that this was of some help!

Regards,
Greg

I have the B&K ref 30 and love it. I use it for all my D to A conversion as well as switching. I've only directly compared it to full receivers, and it blew them all away.

The only problem I had was with the internal digital connection coming loose during shipping, but once I plugged it back in, it was fine. This is a known problem and they're working on fixing it.

John

I have been living with the B&K ref30 for the past 6-7 months and I think it is great. I use it with the B&K 7270 amp and Soliliquy speakers. My ref30 came with the older ver 2.05 software/hardware and the company immediately sent the a new ver 2.08 replacement (n/c). Once everything is set up correctly it is a breeze to use. Even my wife (a 100% technophobe)can use it. One complaint is that the input connectors on the unit are extremely snug making interconnections a bit of a "challenge".

I am not familiar with the Sunfire so I can not offer you a comparison between the two.

Hope you find my input useful. Enjoy, Ken