rvpiano,
I know you just ordered a pair of Red Dragon m-500 monos but I've been doing some online research on Nuforce and found out some information you may not know that I think is important that I let you know about:
In 2014, NuForce’s cofounder, Jason Lim, with backing from the OEM factory, bought the assets of NuForce’s high-end division, obtained the rights to NuForce technologies, and formed NuPrime Audio, Inc. (Shortly thereafter the NuForce company was sold to Optoma.) So, technically, Nuforce didn't go out of business but were actually bought by a company called Optoma, an international manufacturer of video projectors.
As far as I understand it thus far, Jason Lim was more interested in building and selling affordable hi-end amps, dacs and integrated amps with built in dacs and formed Nuprime for this purpose. He used the hi-end assets of Nuforce technologies he purchased from the OEM to form the basis of his new company, Nuprime.
He then sold Nuforce, consisting mostly of the remaining non-hi-end assets, to Optoma. Optoma is now named Optoma-Nuforce and they're selling similar but more modest and lower priced class D products than Nuprime.
I bored you with all the above so you better understand the 2 main things I think you should know:
1. I think Nuprime might be more helpful in repairing your Nuforce mono-block than the former Nuforce technician you've been dealing with.
I suggest you contact Nuprime and see if they'll be able to repair your amp since Nuprime now owns the hi-end assets of Nuforce and may still support your amp (I think yours may be considered a former hi-end Nuforce amp), Here's a link to Nuprime's website
www.nuprimeaudio.com.
2. After researching Nuprime and some of their products' reviews, I think you may want to seriously consider their mono-blocks and compare them to the Red Dragon M-500 monos. You could read some reviews on their mono-blocks as a start and, if interested, see if they offer in-home trial periods, too.
I'm just starting to learn about Nuprime's very interesting mono-blocks and may also inquire about an in-home trial. What has me so interested is that they seem to be combining a class A input stage with class D power modules like some other very expensive and very well reviewed mono-block companies do, for example Devialet. Due to the class D power module's extreme neutrality, the tiny class A signal is amplified faithfully to speaker driving levels and the resultant sound is remarkably similar to the sound produced by traditional class A amps which is overwhelmingly considered by most experts and audiophiles to be the pinnacle of solid state amp audio performance.
Whether Nuprime's mono-blocks actually succeeded and have the sound qualities of a good class A amp is the big question that can only be answered by professional reviewers or, better yet, our own determination via an in-home audition in our own systems. My opinion is that I'm very interested in these Nuprime monos even if the sound quality is just in the neighborhood of good class A amps since they are so much smaller, lighter, more electrically efficient, cooler running and so much more affordable than a traditional class A amp.
What do you think?
Tim
