Nuforce STA200

I wanted to thank you all for sharing your experiences with the STA-200. I am a new, happy owner of the amp and I would not be without the benefit of your experience.

I was a pretty serious budget-oriented audiophile once upon a time. But after decades of faithful service, I knew it was time to replace my Audible Illusions Modulus 2B. The volume pots, replaced once already, were now reliably noisy with any adjustment at all. After some research I brought home a Rogue Audio RP-1. It added a whole new layer of musical detail, but I noticed a layer of upper-midrange glare. I was prepared to look elsewhere.  

Then I realized the glare – which turned into some seriously bad distortion on a solo piano recording – was only in the left channel. I flipped the cables to my power amp and found that the distortion stayed on the left. It was not the pre-amp after all – the higher resolution of the RP-1 revealed a problem with my power amp!

So now I was faced with a larger upgrade, both the Modulus 2B and my (also ancient) Forte Audio 1A amp. Unfortunately my budget hadn’t grown! I went looking for a highly-regarded inexpensive power amp. And that lead me to the STA-200 and, ultimately, to this thread.

The discussion of the STA-200’s sensitivity, and aberyclark and jetter’s experience in solving the problem with pre-amp noise ended up being crucial. Because I had exactly that problem – when I first hooked up the RP-1 and the STA-200, the noise floor was, well, more like a noise ceiling. Tube hiss was clearly audible from my listening position and, although the music through the RP-1 and STA-200 sounded great (dynamic, rhythmic, detailed and supple) the hiss was there every time the music got quiet or silence appeared. Not only that, but any RP-1 volume setting above about 17 (60 being full gain) was too damn loud for my room.

I immediately bought a Schiit SYS, just like aberyclark and jetter. As soon as I popped it between the RP-1 and STA-200, and dialed down the gain to 12 o’clock, the hiss was gone. But not the music. I’m running the volume control at anywhere from 25 – 35 now, so I haven’t even begun to max out the RP-1’s gain. I am very, very satisfied.

So thank you for your contributions to this discussion, especially aberyclark and jetter. I greatly appreciate your help!

Hi deseldin, really nice that you are enjoying the STA-200, it is a fun amp, and its funny that I believe it is the only AB amp they made, the rest being class D (AFAIK).  For me, without mrdecibel's input I wouldn't have purchased this inexpensive little gem.  

The SYS is a fun little toy, the first of its sort I have had.  Have fun.

I love the SYS. I'm glad I could be of help. 

Yes, I have enjoyed the SYS using it as a stand alone passive pre with both the STA200 and Dynaco ST-70. I have not yet tried it as an attenuator between my Jolida  Fusion tube pre and the STA200. This I will do in the future and report back. The Jolida is mated to a BEL 1001 MK5 in my main system. 

The combination of the SYS with the STA200 when paired to the right speakers makes for clean and detailed sonics. One of the best deals in audio. 

I finally purchased the STA 200 amp and it is only 3 hours into listening—I enjoy the soundstage, imaging and sonic bandwidth. The price is fantastic and may be a used amplifier killer up to $2000 used / $4000 new. I’m comparing it to three other amps and will post my impressions later. 
The only issue is the limited space for connecting my speaker cable for bi-wiring.