Sunfire Signature Series II 17" Architect Best Sounding of all Sunfires

I am the one and only owner of this beauty. It has been in my reference system powering full range electrostatics since the day I bought it. It drove Martin Logan CLS 2z 20th anniversary edition speakers since new and never failed to impress. The amp truly lives up to the "load invariant" description given by Bob Carver. This is the 5th Carver-designed amp I have used in the the past 20+ years and it's definitely the reference standard.

It was little known outside of the high-end community that when Bob Carver redesigned the circuit layout of the Series II Signature amp to fit in a smaller home-theatre-furniture-friendly chassis, Bob effectively gave it a huge leap in sound quality due to the improved circuit layout! The reviews in TAS and S'Phile confirm it as do my listening impressions having owned all 3 Signature Series amps, the original, the Series II standard chassis, and the Series II Architect's chassis.

The amp's power ratings are 625 per channel into 8 ohms, 1250 watts per channel into 4 ohms, and an astounding 2500 watts per channel into 2 ohms. It will handle the load of ANY electrostatic speaker and will not shut down, collapse the soundstage, nor lose fidelity even with sustained usage into 1 ohm; nearly every other amp I tried and auditioned did these things when faced with the CLS' difficult load!

Since this amp uses Bob Carver's Tracking Down converter, the quality of the powercord and having it on a dedicated circuit is important to get the very best out of it. The pictured beastly Aural Symphonics MagicGem v2t powercord is NOT included, but you can make an offer if you want it. It is the best powercord I ever encountered for use on this amplifier, and I tried many.

Feature wise, this amp has facilities for single ended RCA connection as well as balanced, there are two sets of speaker taps, and yea, this model has an actual power switch (although I very rarely powered it down).

There are couple of very fine scratches that were impossible to get in a photo, and a small dent in the left side of the chassis, (see picture), so I rated the amp an 8. The bulb for the front meter burned out a year or so ago and I never replaced it. Otherwise the amp is absolutely perfect, sonically as well as visually. I have the original box and manual. I will still double box it just for good measure.

Low ball offers such as "will 1200 cut it?" will be deleted. Give me a break guys. This is a Series II AND the small chassis. The amp that finally convinced me to upgrade is 13k. So please be real and reasonable.

If you are local, pick-ups are OK. Otherwise, I will ship it fully insured via UPS or FEDEX, your expense, threfore your choice. If you have any questions at all about the amp, power cord, shipping, auditioning, or need more pictures, please feel free to contact me directly, [email protected]

Since Paypal AND Audiogon get a sizeable cut of the proceeds, I ask that you pay the convenience fee for Paypal, 3% US dollar or 4.5% non-US dollar, I'll absorb the Audiogon fees.

I have placed a reasonable reserve on this auction. I could be compelled to sell outright if you have the right offer. I have a perfect feedback rating with loads of transactions on Audiogon and on Ebay (same ID)

Happy bidding.