I am very happy with my Nuforce 8.5's. I also believe that the standard power cord supplied is not the normal throwaway. Blame Casey for that, I believe. I had the opportunity to hear the Audio Research Reference 3 preamp, Lamm 2.1 amps, Nordost Valhala interconnects and speaker cable, some expensive line conditioning, and a total room ASC(?) do-over. This is a dedicated room, also. My god!, this stuff exceeds my abilities. Hell(notice I've mention both hell and god?), my recent(3 weeks old) APL Hi-Fi's Denon 3910 exceeds anything that I would expect(thank you, Alex!). Jp1208, I appreciate your advice on the 8.5's versus the 9.02's. I have a bid on one disc that I heard on the mucho-expensive system(It included Wilson Alexandria's-a $135,000 speaker system.), so I can't completely comment until I've heard this disc on my system. I can comment that it sounded incredible on Steve's(Oneobgyn) system. The regular cd didn't come close on my system, though. But, what prices are we talking about here?