Excellent sounding preamp I was reluctant to buy an older piece of equipment but really surprised how great this sounds.I have had several tube preamps in my system including a few AR models Rogue and CJ and I prefer the 3000 very dynamic sound with excellent balance and VERY clean sounding.Incredible phono stage currently running a Benz ace H into the MM input really an improvement over my great Musical Surroundings Nova

Extremely well balanced sound and incredibly quiet for a tube preamp.

Yeah, the SA-3000 is a good value used at $600 or so. Unless you're "bobwire" and can do it yourself, send it off to Mike Elliott the designer and he'll turn it into a world-beater. The sound with about $1200 worth of mods is sensational...unrestrained, grainless, all those refined audiophile adjectives apply.

this is a GREAT, FULL FUNCTION preamp that can be had now for a song- i picked one up for $600, in mint cond. the phono stage alone is worth more than that. very low maintenance, tubes last forever, built like a tank, and the original designer offers upgrades for whatever you desire!!look for one- you won't be disappointed

this is a GREAT piece- the phono section is beautifulbuild quality is great, sound is delicate and detailed
i have seen used pieces in mint condition going for $500-$700, which is really a steal for the quality of the unit

The Counterpoint SA3000 sounds OK right out of the box, but it sounds better with a few changes (additions really.) First, the fifteen-volt power supply has NO LARGE filter capacitors on it! Also, there are no large capacitors at the buffer amp. I added filters caps, to both supplies, the high voltage and the fifteen-volt supply. The high voltage cap was around 110uF/250V installed across a small disc cap at the regulator output. I didn't use the phono section, so I used it for more filtering by adding two more caps at the high voltage end of the plate resistors. Next, I lowered the input output resistors of the Buf03 output buffer to 100 ohms each. Then I changed out all the input output jacks. The stock ones suck. Shortening the long cable from the power transformer didn't hurt either. The wires from the cable are color coded so you can't go wrong. All this led to a dark coloration falling away. Bass was clean and tight, and imaging was to the back corners! Everything happened in its own space. I might add that all the changes were done from the top of the board. I only had to remove one side panel in order to shorten the power cable. It did take longer for the high voltage to come up and the green light to show, so don't panic. The rewards of these few changes are hours of good listening!