Nuforce

Huge advantage of Nuforce is the controlled lower end and size. Someone once told me that these amps sounded lean to them. Yes, they are built that way for a reason. Very nuetral and natural sounding having great depth and openess. It is up to the individual to taylor these to there liking. Every change you make you will notice. The only thing you wont find with these is a muddy lower end. My hunch is with the tubed pre you will find the richness in the mids and not lose the highs.
Rukavina,
do you know how many hours are on the SE's?

I only have about 1 hour on them currently. Will leave them on until Wednesday, about 100hrs.

It's always nice when a reviewer backs up one's own thoughts. Here is a just released review from 6moons.com
on the Nuforce SEs.

http://6moons.com/audioreviews/nuforce3/9se.html

Note the concluding paragraphs.

-John

Looking at the bank of capacitors on the SE's the sonics are going to flucuate until they fully break-in.
I would give them a solid 300 hours or more without turning them off and play them hard at times. It would not hurt to run a burn-in disc while breaking them in. The 9.02's progressively got better up to the 150 hour mark then really leveled off. The SE's will have step changes and when you get there it will be like someone flipped a switch and added another level. Just read the review and saw the capacitors up close. They are bigger than I thought. There is absolutely no way you can tell how good these are going to sound at the 80 hour mark. I would never turn these off and let those capacitors drain. Short periods yes, long periods no way! Only review that I am going to consider is from someone who has done there homework on these. It is believe it or not a complete makeover from the 9.02's and I think the results between the two are going to be staggering which will put the SE's very near the top. Vibration control with these will be more critical than ever. Especially where all those caps are located. I could be wrong here but $1500 for an upgrade from the 9.02's to the SE's could be an absolute steal if indeed nuforce makes the 9.02's exactly the same as the SE's. I am going to find out if they do.

Jp1208, you bring up some good points about burn-in. I wouldn't worry too much about it though. I just installed my second pair of SEs this afternoon and again right out of the box they are easily superior to the Ref 9.02 Premiums.

Considering how good the Ref 9.02 Premiums are, then any further improvements from burn-in over the ensuing weeks is simply icing on an already scrumptious cake. (did I just say that?)

Besides, in my book the SEs are already are at the top. In fact, as positive as the brand new 6moons review is I think the review more accurately depicts the Rev. 9.02's performance than the SEs. But he wrote a good review anyway.

-IMO