Nuforce

I got a pair of 8's last week, and raised the question with Nuforce about the power difference between the 8's and 9's, and well as any differences in sound. I had felt that there must be some compromises in making switchable inputs, and the extra capacitance in the 9's. I was told if I liked the 8's, to keep them, as many prefer them to the 9's. The 8's are a little faster than the 9's, although obviously both are spectacular in this regard. I would also say that the bass in the 8's is excellent. I mention this only because people are referring to the 9's as an "upgrade", but this is not neccesarily the case. The 8's have seen a few changes also, and I wonder how many people go from an older version of the 8 to a new version of the 9 and attribute this improvement to the higher power, when it may be the updates done to both amps?
I personally cannot see needing more power, as I can crank this LOUD and never have it fall apart due to clipping. IMO, that is one of the strengths of these amps, they remain unflustered at high outputs.

Dbarger,

As long as you have adequate power with the Ref 8s and you're happy with the bass extension, there is probably no reason to upgrade to the Ref 9s. The pair of Ref 8s I have are the 8.02, I believe, and I like them very much. My feeling is that the latest Reference 9s are a little better in the ways that I mentioned above. That said, the 8.02's that I have do not contain all the most recent upgrades of my Ref 9s. So it is very possible and likely that the most recent version of the Ref 8 does compete well with the Ref 9, in the midrange and treble (provided that NuForce is upgrading the latest Ref 8 in the same ways).

In my view, bass freaks and those with relatively inefficient speakers (under about 88dB/watt) may be better served by the Ref 9s (this is also dependent on the size of one's room and how loud one likes his music). Since NuForce has extended the bandwidth of the Ref 9s into the treble spectrum, to my ears they sound as fast and detailed as any pair of Ref 8s that I've heard. I believe the bandwidth specs that NuForce currently lists is outdated.

Realize too, that the power supply of the Ref 8s is limited by the smaller size of its chassis, i.e., it's likely that a higher capacity power supply wouldn't physically fit inside the compact dimensions of the Ref 8.

So right now, the relevant performance-related questions are completely dependent upon the specific version of each amplifier you happen to be comparing and which options (if any) they contain.

Has anyone compared the Nuforce Ref 8 or 9s with the new Bel Canto S300?

Markalarsen, Go to 6moons.com, they have pretty much reviewed all the flavor of the week digital amps, including comparisons of older generation bel canto as well. They did EAR, Bel canto, Audiosector, Nuforce, Tripath type, ICE power type... Etc...

Plato, I have two of the ref 9's on order with the extended bass option. Do you know if these amps should run through a power conditioner? I have also heard that bi wiring with double shotgun runs of silver wire is excellent. These amps have outperformed tube amps in the 10k range. This is coming from audiophiles that spend a lot of money on gear and are not dealers and are not affiliated with Nuforce. If they felt that there amps outperformed these after extensive testing then they would not use the nuforce amps. After I heard this I ordered them right away. I feel you possibly had the same experience. I will be driving JM Labs 936's with these amps. If you have any other info to share regarding these amps I am all ears.