Nuforce STA200

After 24 hours of continuous power and background music playing, I did another round of listening. I was thrilled with the amp out of the box. The amp seems to be slightly more "silky" and the low end seems to have "blossomed" FLOABT. I did not think the amp would improve any. However, there is an improvement OR my ears have adjusted differently. Anyway, I did my late night listening with my EQ turned on (I use the eq as a loudness switch for late night listening-slight low end boost). I quickly bypassed the eq off since the low end now seemed too much. I'm at the point now where I may just remove the EQ out of the system. I did do a slight speaker position adjustment to compensate for the much wider soundstage the Nuforce has over my old B&K.

My Zu's are 101db, this amp is dead quiet. Solo piano music seems to come from nowhere.

I'm really thrilled with this amp and can only imagine how much better  the right higher end amp (and Pre) will sound when I shop for one this fall/winter.

Again, I'm coming from a 30+ year old amp...so differences may not be as drastic with something newer. 

It will improve for another week or two. It's an exceptional amp and bargain 

It will improve for another week or two. It’s an exceptional amp and bargain

I was totally surprised with how the low end seemed to go deeper and wider. In the past when I have purchased equipment, I’ve noticed a slight high end "taming" (especially speakers) but never low end improvements.

I’m thinking of the Schiit Freya preamp. Can run in passive mode as well

http://www.schiit.com/products/freya

It's cool you could find a replacement for the old B&K.  My former B&K FET amps sounded great for a few decades and I'm not sure if parts inside degraded over time due to heat or what but I replaced my 2ch/3ch dual mono amps with Outlaw Audio on my HT system and like you said, "a veil got lifted off" for home theater and general listening, but not the same for dedicated 2ch listening.  Will be interesting how the NuForce works for you over the next few years, and if it sounds nice for $499, quite a steal.  I'd be tempted to try it with a nice tube preamp in front of it to see how it does. When I want to save the tubes on my tube amps, I run a Cary solid state amp behind my tube preamp and its quite amazing.  Maybe something to try with the Nuance to see what you think.  Good luck.