Nuforce

Stehno - thanks for updating this thread. Maybe we can catch the "Preamp deal of the century" thread!

I've had my 9.02's for about three months now and continue to be amazed and impressed. I will be sending mine in for the SE upgrade, though I frankly don't see how they could be much improved. Guess it will be one of theose "don't know it til you hear it" things.

BTW - are the SE's your first NuForce? If you upgraded, I would love to hear what areas you heard the most improvements in.

Also, while I have totally seperate, dedicated lines (20 amp) for the NuForces, I have been wondering lately if a power conditioner might further improve the sound. Anyone out there experiment with p. conditioners on the NuForces??

I just received my pair of Nuforce SEs two days ago.

They are really something, even right out of the box with significant improvements within the first 35 hours.

JTKTTA (Just to keep this thread alive)

How about price comparison between H2O and Nuforce 9SE? Maybe more apples to apples here. This would be a good fly wieght chmpionship battle. My money would go on the 9SE just because of his quickness and punch. Although we have to wait for the 9SE to mature a bit. Maybe we give the 9.02's the first title shot and see what happens before big brother arrives.

Haven't heard the H2O as they are not distributed/supported in my country (the Nuforce are). But for whatever reason I hear more potential in the Nuforce design than the IcePower design (have owned and played with both. This view appears to me to be borne out by others, eg, Ric Schultz reports his modified Nuforce amps beat out his modified IcePower amps.

But there is no doubt H2O have had more time, and have spent much more refining the H2O than Nuforce has on their Ref 9.02s. I would strongly suspect that putting a large (and expensive) conventional power supply on and Ice module would probably make it sound better than a (inexpensive) SMPS supply on a Nu module. So I suspect the view the H2O is better than the Ref 9.02 may well be correct. I guess it depends on your point of view as to whether the comparison is apples/apples or apples/oranges.

You guys don't appear to me to understand what is being said in terms of 'the customer being always right'. This is not saying the customer is right about the facts (if you read my post you will see I said just that). It is saying as a business, competition is for the customer, and the only source of wealth for a firm is due to the customer paying across money. The decision by the customer to part with money is based on that customers' view of reality at the time, and noone else's. Therefore that is the only version of reality that matters to the firm. The firm ought to work hard to affect the customers' view of reality, but the customers' actual view is the only relevant reality. Is this too existentialist for you? Yes, by the way, I have three successful businesses right now.

Well, Stehno, so far Woodburger stands alone among the people's comments I've read, who have preferred the Nuforce against the admittedly more expensive H2O Sigs. Woodburger graciously pointed that out he knows of two who clearly preferred the H2O. I am anxious to hear the Nuforcem and H2O in a championship ring fight.

For any dealer, or owner in the N Cal area, I throw down the gauntlet.

System matching is key to how an amp will sound. I have incrementally improved my system's sound by relearning what makes my amps happy. I am simply amazed how much of all other component choices gravely effect the signal. There is a lot of grunge inherent in most wires, preamps, and front ends.

I imagine Nuforce owners are finding that out for themselves.

Plato, Woodburger, Jp1208, and Fiddler. Your common-sense postings are a breath of fresh air and are appreciated.

Who woulda' thunk there'd be such a resistence to these very dynamic and refined sounding little 7 lbs. cool looking and cool running $1250 amplifiers that are being competitively compared to $35k amps by professionals in the industry and confirmed by some to many enthusiasts?

And yes, (of course depending on the rest of the system as always) I too would have no problem letting these little guys go toe-to-toe with perhaps any amp out there regardless of cost. I only put the ficticious $10k cap in an earlier post so as not to further incite the crazed resistence.

You are correct, Fiddler, the customer is not always right. Especially when one is not a customer and perhaps never intends to become a customer.

The individual customer can be as right or wrong as anybody but I can certainly see where the collective customer as a whole is always right. This certainly is not the case here.

-IMO

No need for me to listen to a 10k tube amp or any other 10k amp. Give me another $2500 set up that you think is better and I would auditon it. It would have to be considerably better for me to even think about it. I feel the tube guys are defending themselves here because they know that Nuforce is the real deal$$$$. Some people who heard the 9.02 at CES said they sounded lean or thin. It was not the amps they were hearing. Put the right cabling and a highly upgraded cdp on these and the richness comes out with imaging that I did not think I would ever achieve unless I put 50k into a system. The only piece I am missing is there p8 pre amp. Plugging the 9.02's into dedicated lines also helped.

As to what made the different in my system, I can't say for sure. I did audition the H20 sigs TWICE, due to the generousity of Henry Ho. They sounded good. But the NuForce was more dynamic yet clean and unrestricted. When I put my tube amp back in after 3 weeks of the Ref 9.02s, the game was over. Had to sell.

Others have written about what I find so wonderful - the sense of ease. Although you can't tell at the time, by comparison, it was almost as if the other amp (ARC VT100MKII) compressed the vocals while the bands were playing (not loud enough to actually BE compression - peaks at 85db C weighted on 93db/w/m speakers (WP7s)). On the NuForce there seems to be simply more dynamic range on everything. I heard no bothersome artifacts - the tiny pop on turnon is tiny - hiss with no input I don't hear at all... the rfi isn't an issue in my system.

I experimented with various power schemes and 5? cords and various ICs and speaker wire. Tried both amps single ended and balanced.

Henry kindly sent the H2O back after I sold off my Transparent Ref cables - the H20 didn't like those network boxes! I tried Speltz back then, and later settled on Audience Au24, which is very very nice.

Neither the H20 or the NuForce was better on a PS Audio powerplant versus into the wall (dedicated circuit) no matter which Multiwave pattern I used - or even SIN. PS Audio HC Ultimate outlet didn't make a positive change on the amps either.

Once upon a time I auditioned several Preamps... the Ref 1 by ARC against the LS5MKIII. The difference I remember was what I'd say I heard between the H2O and the NuForce... with the Ref, when I turned it up, the music got louder. With the LS5MKIII, when I turned it up, I became more immersed in the music. It was more dynamic - more jump factor, I'd say. Same with the 9.02s.

Bob Wood

Redkiwi,

I don't know if you have ever owned a business or not, but believe you me, the customer is not always RIGHT!

Plato...I described my comment as an opinion but I did set forth some rationalle for it.

1.."These modules are intended... bugs get quickly found and fixed".

2..I cite a real world example from my work experience where original design of electronics has been supplanted by use of off-the-shelf subassemblies, with excellent results I might add.

I don't think that "premature conjecture" is a fair description. Perhaps you could share some rational justification for your opinion, in addition to the color of the universe.

That's funny, I read about a guy with Apogee speakers that had the H20 amps and the NuForce Reference 8 (early version), and he said it powered his Apogees just fine. And I believe they were the very low impedance model. He summed up that experience by saying that the H20's had more ultimate bass weight and slam, but other than that he thought the amps were very comparable. I know the Ref 9s have more bass weight and slam than the Ref 8s, so I guess that would even things up a bit more.

Hey, I'm sure they're both great sounding amps, and that one may do something a little better than the other (and vice-versa). To me it's not that big a deal. I just think it's silly to say (or to believe) that one amp is hugely better.

I have about three reviews to write at the moment, but perhaps when I'm further along I'll contact Henry Ho to see if he'll send a review sample.

Meanwhile, if there are any H20 owners within driving distance of Tucson that would like to do a shootout, let's get it on. ;-D

Plato, my amps are going nowhere. If you ever visit the left coast, be my guest. I believe Henry will send you his amps for audition.

Maybe Nuforce will send their monos to me for a trial. I have friends that have speakers they can handle.

We can share notes afterwards.

Bob, I wonder what made the difference in your system? I ask, because your experience, as you stated, stands apart from almost all other listeners. There are so many variables. Both Nuforce, and H2O amps benefit from synergistic power cords, for instance. Then again, I have been in the same room with other folks trying to get a bead on some component vs. others, where opinions bounce all over the place.

Ahem. I did audition the H2O Sig and the NuForce 8b and 9.02. I think Henry Ho makes a fine product and is a real gentleman - I know two people who loved that amp and bought it right away.

To me, in my system, the NuForces had 'it.' And I bought the 9.02s, selling my ARC VT100MKII.

Now you'll ask why? I can only say the NuForce for whatever the reason, brought me closer to the sense of live music.

Bob Wood
http://www.GreatHomeTheater.com/stereo.html

Wow, no kidding, NuForce backed out... They must be really scared!

Hey, I'll tell you what Muralman, why don't you get your buddy Henry Ho to send me a pair of his best H20 amps and I'll review them along with the NuForce Reference 9SE amps I'll be getting soon... Or you can always send me your own amps for a few weeks if you're interested. I'll have the review and results published -- so the world can read all about it.

Sound good???
Frank

I agree with audiofankj. The Nuforce won't power my speakers, so I won't be the one to put it to the test against other class D amps. By and By, someone will. Audio Circles has a guy who was planning on doing that, but Nuforce backed out.

Eldartford, I think your comments amount to nothing more than a lot of very premature conjecture. Personally I believe the true color of the universe is Antique Rose Copper, but then, I could be wrong too. LOL !

I believe that the future of audio power amps lies with use of prepackaged modules such as ICE or UcD (especially the latter). These modules are intended for application not only in many brands of audiophile equipment but also in Pro Sound and other audio arenas. Because the market is so broad it can support extensive R&D and volume production which leads to low cost without quality impact. And, because of the volume, any bugs get quickly found and fixed.

In the military electronics field wherre I worked for more than 20 years we used to design all our own stuff. No more. Nowadays we mostly use commercial designs, sometimes modified for any unique requirements of the military application. Not only is this a lot cheaper (good for the poor taxpayer) but we have to admit that commercial "off the shelf" electronics are almost always superior in performance to what we could do. This should be no surprise. Think how many millions of dollars TI, Intel, AMD, can invest in the design and development of, for example, a microprocessor. Our volume requirement for an "end of life" production run is typically measured in the hundreds.

A "roll your own" design approach such as used by Nuforce makes for interesting technical work, but perhaps is a commercial dead end. Good thing this audio business is a hobby!

I am happy with Nuforce's policy. I am happy that the market is 'buyer beware' unless there have been misrepresentations. I am happy with the Nuforce amps I have and I am upgrading to some new Nuforce amps.

I also appreciate that it is tough being a new guy where you have to pay the bills by selling what you've got, rather than wait till the next round of R&D is spent.

I can understand all that.

Just remember the customer is always right about how he feels about a firm, product or service. He may not be right about the facts, and he may not be listening to you when you tell him the facts, but he is the one that is right, because his decision to buy from you is based on his views, not the vendor's. And he is always right about how he feels.

There is no doubt that Nuforce's teething problems have impacted how customers feel about buying a Nuforce amp. The justifications or rationalisations from Nuforce or its dealers don't change any of that much at all. The upfront nature of Jason at forums here can change things, and I hope already is.

Some of us just need to put it down to experience that a new product from a previously unheard of firm is not likely to have a fully-developed product at its first outing. There are no rules that say they must have a fully developed product either.

Some of us just need to listen to the voice of the customer and understand that the emotions behind the words are driven by real (and always right) feelings about the product or service experience or about the pride, or otherwise, of ownership. And the fact that you know the expressed facts are wrong doesn't change that.

For all the positives about the intrinsic product, the perceived failings are real because customers feel them. That's just the way it is, and if you don't accept it, you may not deserve to have customers. Of course those dopey customers are wrong about how it really happened - you only have to be in business to know that will always be the case. But the only reality that matters is how it occurs to your customers. Be thankful your customers still use your amps, upgrade them and are still interested enough to let you know what they are feeling on this and other forums.

Wow, unbelieveable, what a hornet's nest this thread has become...

Redkiwi and Stehno, I want to thank you for posting. I hope some folks can see what's really going on here.

My opinion it that the NuForce detractors suffer from a few common human failings, which certainly isn't damning, but it is rather disappointing. I'm talking about shortsightedness, failure to see the big picture, and dare I say -- a certain amount of jealousy.

Personally, I'm extremely thankful for NuForce's novel contributions to home audio reproduction. It's not like their early designs sound bad by any means. But they are improving all the time and that seems to scare some people.

No one says that you have to send the amps back every time there is a small change. My feeling is that if you like the sound you are currently getting then stick with it for a while. If you want to stay current then fine, send the amps back once or twice a year and have them upgraded for very reasonable fees.

NuForce is also unique in offering this level of customer support and service. A lot of other companies will just tell you to sell the old model and buy their new one. Either that or they charge very high prices for their upgrades.

NuForce is a very proactive and progressive company and some folks just can't stand it. I say too bad for them. As for me, I'm enjoying my music more than ever since I changed my reference amplification to NuForce.

Oh yeah, and I'll put my current Reference 9's (nevermind the SE's) up against all comers regardless of price. They will certainly beat the bulk of amplifiers on today's market, and those that can compete will likely cost much more.

We made the changes in version 9.02 to fix overheat protection and sonic performance improvement.
We had a debate at that time whether to release it or not.
The advises that I (yes, I personally is responsible for this decision) received from dealers is that we should just follow what many manufactures do in the industry. Track the chances internally with the serial number and don't announce it. Ship new products with the upgrade quietly. If customers have problem, we quietly replace it for them. Then nobody is going to complain that we have to many revisions (after all the upgrades for Ref 8, we should avoid doing that).

My biggest problem with this decision is that I will leave all my previous customers in the dark and deny them of an improvement. We want to build a company with superior product and customer satisfaction. So I decided that we should bite the bullet and not compromise our integrity. I told my guys that we'll take the heat and just try our best to explain our philosophy. Someday people will understand. Having said that, there is no more upgrades for Ref 9. version 9.02 is the last one. We beat the design to death. Ref 9 SE is a higher end product costing a lot more. But keeping our strategy of offering the best as an option to Ref 9 customers, Ref 9 can be upgraded to the SE.

All Nuforce Reference series products can be upgraded with new circuit board or power supply when new technology becomes available.

NuForce performance better than almost anything up to $10K?

I would love to hear someone A/B the H2oAudio Signature mono's ($5,500 retail) with either the 9.02 or the 9 SE, or next months 9.1 SE...

Tvad, I think you do potentially err in your presupposition.

You seem to insinuate that other mfg’ers upgrades are for reasons different than Nuforce’s.

Did it ever occur to you that perhaps Nuforce is just a bit more honest than other mfg’ers? I’m not saying they are or are not. But did you ever stop to consider this?

For example, I am aware of a component mfg’er whose distributor performed a wholesale sell off of his entire inventory of the pricey component, thus rendering the product worthless in the marketplace.

To salvage the product and perhaps the company, it is my understanding the mfg’er announced a new and improved version of the product but there were supposedly no changes except cosmetic.

The product was salvaged. But the point being is that neither you, I nor anybody else really have any idea why any company truly announces a new revision.

Whether that story is true or not, we’ll never know. But if it is true, there is just one deceptive reason for a mfg’er’s revision.

That is why I think your’s and other’s comments regarding this particular mfg’er are irresponsible, non-sensical, and potentially damaging.

Because you and others pretend you do know the real motivation for Nuforce performing a number of revisions. Shoot, for all we know maybe they don’t even know why. And that is where I think you and others are potentially deceiving the reader into thinking you are in the know. When the fact of the matter is you and others are just as much in the dark as anybody else.

Perhaps it’s your speaking as fact and authoritative rather than guessing or hypothesizing that I find troubling.

-IMO

>Redkiwi the comparison between Audiomatus and Nuforce- pretty close, but Audiomatus was supposedly better. i couldn't care less :)

"Any particular reason you are not interested in digital amps?"
in my opinion they still do not sound as good as a good mosfet amp can for example.

"If a digital amp sounded better than your current amp would you still rule it out on some grounds?"

no place for that, see. i own ATC passive speakers with their integraded. it does sound great, and the way to upgrade for me is to go for active ATC SCM50s or 100s, no separate amp within reasonable cost limits could match this active package.

"The only one that I can imagine is that with the rate of development then resale price could be problemmatic, but I suspect that is not it.."

its a cheap technology and slowly people are realizing it, so the prices are slowly falling. for e.g. JRDG prices for its digital amps seem to be absurd in comparison with some alternatives...

Ah, I missed the joke.

Guys, guys. I’m surprised at some of your comments here. Especially since some of them appear so irresponsible and irreversibly damaging when in fact you haven’t a clue what Nuforce is doing behind the scenes or what their Marketing strategy might be.

For the record, the new Nuforce Ref 9SE special edition amps cost significantly more than the Ref 9.02 amps. They look the same on the outside but are significantly different inside.

And I’d also like to say that Nuforce has produced an amp whose sonic performance appears to be near impossible to achieve at less than $10k. And if you can’t tell that, then you might want to start looking at your other equipment because you obviously have some shortcomings somewhere.

Tvad, your statements are especially disappointing because as an owner of the APL 3910, you have experienced and/or witnessed many revisions to your ucdp but without apparent protest from you. Was APL giving you the best he could in his in his first revision? Perhaps it was the best he could reasonably and cost effectively do at that time. What about APL’s latest revision? And what about the next revision?

Why would you treat Nuforce and their amps any differently? In fact, Nuforce has received far more accolades regarding their performance than APL has. TAS magazine is indirectly and perhaps even directly competitively comparing these little amps to the ASR Emitter II $35k and other far more costly and acclaimed amps which TAS thinks are the cat’s meow. Well, apparently TAS and perhaps Positive-Feedback also thinks the Nuforce Ref 9.02s are the cat’s meow.

I also own the APL 3910 and thoroughly enjoy its superior performance so I certainly am not attempting to slam APL here because it is a fantastic unit. In fact, I think it’s great that Alex, like Nuforce, is always improving the already superior sonics.

But just because these companies come out with an upgrade does not mean we have to jump on it. And if you feel cheated somehow, get over it. You obviously thought the product was worth the money when you bought it. So it’s only in your own head if you feel cheated that the mfg’er has now improved on it.

The point is, name one manufacturer who is giving you their very best. If you are being honest, you can’t. Simply because you do not know what their best is, nor their motives, nor their marketing strategies.

Nor can anybody fully comprehend the true or imagined compromising the mfg’ers face, nor can we fully understand their resulting interpretation and execution of those true or imagined compromises.

Try this one. Which of us as parents would love to do things differently with regard to raising our firstborn?

In other words, younger parents and younger companies have more opportunity and often times more eagerness to learn and grow. In fact, it is typically the younger parent or company who is more attentive and willing to attempt improvements when confronted with shortcomings and/or new technologies or concepts.

Furthermore, there are plenty of companies who have stopped giving their best. Any company that thinks it has arrived and need not continue to perform R&D and provide new improved product is a dying company. But I don’t see anybody ragging on them.

Nuforce’s methodology of revisioning may not be to your liking and that’s fine. But I’ll put the performance of a Nuforce Ref 9.02 amp up against any you’ve tried or even read about and it may very well do more than hold its own. And from the looks of it, the best is yet to come.

Moreover, we all seem to have become accustomed to Microsoft’s and many other software companies’ many upgrades and revisions. Why don’t you guys go rag on them next time your computer hangs? Truly their products are inferior to anything Nuforce makes.

Yet for some reason some of you think that Nuforce products alone should remain stagnant. And if they do not remain stagnant, they are admitting failure or worse for previous released products. That’s being unreasonable and just plain silly.

To bring things a little closer to home, how many of us have swapped out component after component, cable after cable, or even system after system seeking to improve the sonics? What’s so wrong if a company does that with their own products? Not that I am claiming Nuforce is doing that, but if they were, is that not simply illustrating tremendous enthusiasm and pride-of-ownership knowing that no matter how good they or anybody else may their product is today, they know they can do better and are not going to wait until next year. If they were doing this, where’s the crime? And if they are doing this, at the rate their going, 12 months from now there may not be an amp in the universe that can touch them performance-wise.

As one who grew up in GM country (Michigan) I am quite aware that certain companies actually design product to let the customers unknowingly beta test the product at their expense. I’m thinking at the moment of the 1984 Corvette that msrp’ed for $25k. One year later, owners couldn’t give them away. But even that is a bit speculative on my part and yes some to many have become wary of corporations that practice such things.

To anybody’s knowledge, Nuforce has done no such thing. Nuforce, like APL, has been very accommodating to owners to upgrade to the current revision at little and sometimes no cost except shipping. Try that with some other manufacturers or products in other industries.

I’ve never listened to a NuForce Ref. 8 amp, but as I recall that so-called inferior product received some pretty decent reviews. But I know of others (who know their stuff) who have listened and owned the 8s who actually appreciated its sonic qualities.

Make no mistake about it, the Nuforce amps are serious performers and at very reasonable if not extremely affordable prices. In fact, I’d be surprised if there exists an amp under the $10k price that could go toe-to-toe with these beautiful little guys.

I’ve not had the opportunity to audition the new Ref 9 SEs, but what if per chance they blow away all competition? I fear some of you would be right back here posting your little nasties about how Nuforce is constantly improving their product line.

By your reckless and rather silly reasoning you repeatedly attempt to put Nuforce on the hook and you won’t let them off. But they’ve done something here that is almost revolutionary; uncompromised performance, size, aesthetics, cooling, weight and at an almost unheard of price.

I can only imagine how some you must freak out thinking your mothers must have been cheated knowing they have a half-full box of Tide detergent in the laundry room only to see the new and improved Tide on the TV commercials.

-IMO
Yes, I am a relatively new Nuforce dealer. But I was an owner before I became a dealer. And I became a dealer because I could not afford to buy the company.

"Is there an estimated release date for the Reference 9.1SE?"
Don't try to be cute :). It is Reference 9 Special Edition, short for Reference 9 SE. Not 9.1

The Web site says end of March.

I'd like to wait for that one.

Tvad, surely you jest.

Please! The NuForce Reference 9 Special Edition is NOT a replacement of the standard Ref 9. It cost a whopping $2100 per unit versus $1250 for the Ref 9 :).
Please read the Nuforce website for the differences between standard and SE.

Hey Pitdog. I agree the Tripath has been surpassed, and I found the Nuforce capable of beating the IcePower, so that kind of gels for me. Any particular reason you are not interested in digital amps? If a digital amp sounded better than your current amp would you still rule it out on some grounds? The only one that I can imagine is that with the rate of development then resale price could be problemmatic, but I suspect that is not it..

I think the sound quality for the money is unmatched by conventional designs. But that no doubt depends on what you want your amps to do. I prefer the analogue switching amps and find conventional amps sound broken by comparison - unacceptable levels of grain, coloration and an unnatural sound stage. I am talking dollar for dollar here. But I think you will find Nuforce will gradually introduce new 'models' to get their retail price up amongst the big guys over the next few years - now that they have done the hard yards of gaining a brand position.

While I have criticised Nuforce, I believe that with their particular amp modules they have made a real breakthrough. It is not a surprise that a newcomer to the audiophile world is finding the commercial design part of the task difficult to come to grips with. As I said earlier it is rare in the electronic world to find an organisation that can lead in fundamental design and be competent in commercial design of a new product. Intel can't manage it, or more accurately, don't even try.

Most of our admired audiophile brands are only capable of commercial design and perhaps we should be criticising them for failing to deliver any fundamental design breakthroughs - endlessly refining circuit ideas generated decades ago is limiting the whole art.

It is frustrating as a customer for sure. So wait a couple of years if that bothers you. But the bang for the buck is unmatched right now, and the rate at which Nuforce is improving its commercial designs is pretty impressive. Sure they have a bit to learn - and it is laudable that they are doing that in forums such as Audiocircle, and obviously learning some things the hard way.

>Jp1208 more specs should be on their polish language site, or just write them.
im not interested in digital amps but a friend of mine reviewed a couple of them and this Audiomatus was in the same league as the others, except its price. see, its made in poland and its priced for he local market. in this case one pays for the sound, and not for famous name or sth. and the build quality is great, especially with their wooden front version.
from what i heard, Belcanto (evo4 bridged or sth) sounded worse than Audiomatus... if im not mistaken, Belcanto uses Tripath chip, and Audiomatus ICE-power modules.
i heard some more opinions which all seemed to support what i found out from my friend.

I'm not a fan of digital amps, and they shure must evolve in order to obtain the same level of sound quality of a classic design. So, wait for the next iteraction, it will sound better.
But this is no excuse for lousy engeneering, bad design, weak parts or experimentations.
Customers like to have a definitive design. This policy only leeds to insatisfacton.

Something for everyone........a comedy tonight.

Maybe you guys have not read the latest offering from the NuForce gang on Audio Circle. Comedy this good, you can't get just any ol' place.

My contribution to the farce:

http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/viewtopic.php?p=233843&highlight=#233843

The intrigue of their, uh.......uh......shall we say latest approach to marketing........ is more interesting reading.

At least to me. You decide for yourselves.

Maybe, about the revisions, but if you listen to the current model Ref 9.02, it's an awesome sounding amp that clearly outperforms the bulk of amplifiers on todays market and competes with some VERY expensive units.

True, the many revisions are annoying, but the results of these revisions are giving us sensational performance for the dollar. So consider that too...

I expect to receive a set of the new Reference 9SE amps later this month, and I can't wait! Nuforce is upgrading the internal parts and I believe they are cryo-treating the processing module and a couple other enhancements.

It should be very interesting to compare to the current Reference 9.02.

I was trying to say that Nuforce appeared to have no idea how to implement an audio design when they made the Ref8, but that since then (like me) they have been working on getting the implementation right. Using their customers as Beta-testers is not a good look by the way Nuforce. My use of the words 'no idea' were driven by my incredulity that they had used a Polyester cap in the signal path. Do that and you can destroy the sound of any stereo system with a single blow.

Just a few observations to throw into this. I had a pair of Rowland Model 201s, and bought a very early pair of Nuforce Ref 8, the 70W version. The Nuforce was almost impossible to listen to, being hard from the upper midband up. I then opened them up to discover Nuforce obviously had no idea of how to implement an audio design. Not surprising. It is a rare firm that can do the fundamental design and the commercial design too. So I started modding the heck out of it. In some cases all that was required was an improvement in a cap or a resistor quality level (such as they had a poyester cap as the input CD blocking cap - how could they?!!!). Everything else really came down to the fact the design was ultra-wideband, presumably because the theory says this will give you perfect phase response. But in the real world ultra-wideband meant noise in the system, and users would experience different noise issues depending on their situation and particularly in terms of cabling. It took a lot of experimenting to figure out the best ways to reduce the RFI without screwing with the sound but the biggest bang for the buck was putting a choke on the speaker output. Essentially I had to figure out how to eliminate noise getting in through the power cord, the interconnect and the speaker wires. After a lot of hours of 'fun', and very few dollars of playing around, these babies sound utterly glorious with a natural sweetness and delicacy, tied with a vice-like grip to the swing and flow of the music. The 70W version has no problems driving my Verity speakers. The Rowlands have been sold. I am hoping to get a pair of Ref9.02s to do a quick comparison soon. I suspect Nuforce has been doing mainly what I have been doing - implementing the original, and obviously excellent, design properly.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but it appears to me that comparisons that have been made are between the NuForce and conventional mid-fi/lower high-end amps. In that case it is not very interesting as conventional amps tend to get better when they are higher priced (not because they are overpriced but because they have larger power supplies, tighter tolerance components etc.). It would be interesting to compare the NuForce and let's say a $8-10,000 US conventional amp. I know this would be unfair, but it remains an interesting comparison. If the NuForce isn't wiped out by the much pricier amp, then it would be very convincing indeed. My own personal experience with an Acoustic Reality (eAR) ICEpower amp (also class D) is that in comparison with the almost 10 times more expensive Accuphase A-50V the eAR is no slouch. That's why I'm not longer convinced of the necessity spending $10-20,000 US (or more) for a conventional poweramp to get good sound.

Chris

I just picked up a pair of these.......totally awesome. Far better than my Oddysey monoblocs........they crush them in terms of transparency, detail, imaging etc..