SOLDSophia Electric Baby tube integrated amplifier in excellent condition, with 10 clean and lively watts per channel, and a spare set of new tubes. Asking $395 plus shipping.
With relatively efficient speakers, this hefty little amp is an engaging music-maker. And it’s very quiet in operation, without the hiss and hum you get from many tube amps.
I bought this as a mint trade-in from highly rated Audiogon dealer Underwood Wally. It is in excellent condition electronically and cosmetically. I have used it to drive various speakers (Spendor SP3/1p, Blumenstein Orca, and for fun an old pair of Polk monitors), and enjoyed all the combinations. The stock tubes are working fine, and I bought a set of NOS backup tubes (four power tubes, two input tubes), which I plugged in and ran for only an hour to make sure they worked. You get both sets of tubes, which should serve you for a long time.
Comes with original shipping box. US-48 sales only, please. Buyer pays shipping (approx. 25 pounds) from Virginia zip 22902. PayPal preferred, no extra fee at the asking price.
I have a long record of all-positive feedback on Audiogon and other audio sites.
Excerpts from some of the many positive reviews you can find online:
Positive Feedback: “The Baby is dead quiet. It is also musical and a heck of a lot of fun. I found myself slipping into the music and forgetting the review process more often than not.” “The Sophia Music Baby is an incredible value. You can spend ten times as much, but I'm not sure you'll get ten times better sound. The Baby is musical, smooth, and kind of dreamy in its portrayal of music, especially acoustic music. Voices were rendered with a lushness that belied the Sophia's tiny size. I know that the solid state guys out there groan about "tube distortion," and they're right, nor will the Baby's ten watts shake the house with pounding bass, but if you crave detail, resolution, smoothness, cymbals that sound like cymbals, guitar strings that vibrate and flutter, and horns that positively sing, tubes are the way to go, and you couldn't ask for a much better tube amp than the Baby, especially at its price. …a truly wonderful entry into the world of tube sound, the basis of a small but high-quality audiophile system, or just a fun alternative to pull out when you're tired of solid state sound.”
TNT Audio: “The Sophia Electric Baby Amplifier has first rate build quality. Just picking it up, feeling its solid construction and considerable heft gives the impression of quality. Turning the volume control reveals its motion to be silky smooth, and it is completely quiet in operation. From the flawless matt black finished transformer cover to the rubber feet on the bottom, there nothing cheap or cheesy about the build quality of the Sophia amplifier.
Enjoy the Music: “All in all the Sophia Electric stereo tubed amplifier offers impressive sound easily challenging unit more than double the costs. …plenty of soundscaping, inner resolution, very good bass, quite accurate midrange, and an uppermost frequencies reproduction that is simply too good to be true at this low price point.”
