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WELCOME TO THE MUSEUM
OF S O N O C U S
Welcome, welcome. The price of admission is your curiosity.
Here you will find my past projects that showcases the philosophy and the DNA of S O N O C U S , which is the strive for value, minimalism, performance, and therefore utmost satisfaction.
Over 300 of the machines you see below have been hand built by me in the period of last seven years, all exclusively sold in Korea.
The last of these machines (Beautiful Monster series) were the direct ancestors of current S O N O C U S lineup and their success is the very drive behind the founding of S O N O C U S and its flagship preamp, 526.
LITTLE GENERAL AMPLIFIER
Composite IC chip amp created by Linuxguru. Meager 20w into 8ohm but its very clean very dynamic power.
For quiet listening environment of many korean households, this was the bee's knee's.
circa 2013~ 2016
CUSTOM DACS
circa 2013~ 2014
NOS DACs made with aesthetics as intent.
Mostly featured TDA1543 and 1387 chips and impossible to acquire high end and industrial components gutted from expensive machines and a Tenor USB decoder chip, before the advent of XMOS. Some of the featured components were Jensen trafos, copper foil bypass caps, current sensing shunt regs (for a 40year old chip!).
The sound of these DACs were like that of a nice sounding tubed radio.
TIGER PREAMP
circa 2019~2020
First project of mine that led me to expanding my learning in circuit design and layout
techniques, which has now become a primary focus of every machine at S O N O C U S .
Tiger preamp was composite mosfet design, low gain high bias, or what is also called muscle preamp.
The success of this preamp was a precious help to me through the pandemic and was the inspiration and drive behind the creation of Beautiful Monster Preamp.
BEAUTIFUL MONSTER PREAMP
circa 2020~2023
Modular dual mono solid state preamp.
Many of the layout feature that were implemented for Beautiful Monster are now found in every S O N O C U S linestages.
Beaumon was a small commercial success, selling over 100 units in Korea alone, of which were all hand built by me for the next 3 years of Beaumon's production life.
the best ideas and implementations that were tried for countless versions of Beautiful Monster eventually finds its way into S O N O C U S 526 , which makes 526 not only a brainchild of Beaumon but also a linestage that has undergone over 3 years of long and fruitful maturity cycle.