Not Another NuForce thread......

having visited Audiooracle's web site -- audiodoctor.com -- I now have reasons to summize that the $21K solid state amp that David (Audiooracle) has been cross-listening with NuForce may be an Edge Electronics model. Since then, I have exchanged a courtesy call with David, which has cleared a lot of ground on this issue. David is the first one to state that, rather than NuForce being an absolute best -- under certain configurations and for certain users -- like when being directly driven by a AA Prestige CD/SACD player, the NuForce may be found by some to be competitive in some ways with the Edge. While Edge yields indisputably superior silkiness and musicality and subtle warmth, NuForce may be found to yield a perhaps more open sound, three dimensionality extension and detail, at perhaps some expense of ultimate smoothness and 'musicality'. David further conceeds that different users will have differing opinions. Sounds fair to me. I further discovered that in 2004 and 2005 David was my patient, kind and knowledgeable host at Sound By Singer, and was the one who unwittingly caused me to fall in love with--and eventually 'wed'--Esoteric X-01, while he was singing the praise of the admittedly highly seductive sound of the Bel Canto PL-1A. . . and how is that for an ultimate paranymph 'malgrais lui'?

are we talking Dave Lalin? i've met him a number of times at Singer over the years (not in the past 5 though since i moved west) and he absolutely knows his stuff (Matt was my salesman many years ago--i think back at Innovative now)

btw, Nuforce is the real deal. i would never pay up for huge SS amps again. i've also had the BAT VK 75SE up against it...its closer than you might expect. not quite the liquidity/mids of the BAT, but the bass is more ballsy and the highs are outstanding. the bat is better depending on your needs---i just don't listen to tons of music anymore, so ended up selling my tube gear. i'm more of a sports junkie these days.

KR

>>Personally I think the combination of tubes in the front end or preamplifier driving the Nuforce is the winning combination. The amplifiers really do work wonderfully well with tubes.<<

David, I agree 100% with your findings. I am a member of our local audio club and we listened to my Nuforce Ref. 9s (before upgrading them to V2) with superb electronics and speakers (Resolution Audio CD-player/pre-amp with Great Northern Sound mods) along with Gamut L-3s (BTW... these are amazing speakers!) and I wasn't impressed with the sound. Others in attendance were, but I wasn't. Just wasn't my taste.

However, in my system with my digital front-end - an APL Denon 3910 which has a tube output stage and a built-in attenuator, it's a completely different story. I am running my front-end directly into my Nuforce amps and the combination sounds magical... much different than the RA/Gamut combination.

So system synergy is very important with these amps (in particular) in my experience.

GCIL,
I have a resolution Audio Opus 21 and I briefly tried to drive my NF ref9SE v2 into my Gallos ref 3 II directely through the output of the Opus 21: I only kept it for 15 minutes and then inserted a Minimax tube preamp. The difference was absolutely night and day.
I have had the Opus for a couple of years and tried it with a lot of associated gear. It is my favourite CDP but in my experience (and many others') the line stage is absolutelly terrible: I always found that there is a real big increase in quality using the DIN output (which bypasses the volume control) compared to the DIN and the XLR.
So if you have heard the Nuforce directely driven by the Opus 21, I am not surprised that you didn't like them

i used a marsh p2000t with some tube rolling and isolation, preferred it over a nuforce p-8 preamp. i realize marsh is not in the top tier of tubed preamps. though it has received some good reviews. in the end it could not contend with my p-9.
i had been studying the use of tubed preamps with nuforce amps and it seems a lot of people like that combo.
thats why we can choose what appeals to our liking from so much great gear available. its a buyers market.