having visited Audiooracle's web site -- audiodoctor.com -- I now have reasons to summize that the $21K solid state amp that David (Audiooracle) has been cross-listening with NuForce may be an Edge Electronics model. Since then, I have exchanged a courtesy call with David, which has cleared a lot of ground on this issue. David is the first one to state that, rather than NuForce being an absolute best -- under certain configurations and for certain users -- like when being directly driven by a AA Prestige CD/SACD player, the NuForce may be found by some to be competitive in some ways with the Edge. While Edge yields indisputably superior silkiness and musicality and subtle warmth, NuForce may be found to yield a perhaps more open sound, three dimensionality extension and detail, at perhaps some expense of ultimate smoothness and 'musicality'. David further conceeds that different users will have differing opinions. Sounds fair to me. I further discovered that in 2004 and 2005 David was my patient, kind and knowledgeable host at Sound By Singer, and was the one who unwittingly caused me to fall in love with--and eventually 'wed'--Esoteric X-01, while he was singing the praise of the admittedly highly seductive sound of the Bel Canto PL-1A. . . and how is that for an ultimate paranymph 'malgrais lui'?