Nuforce

Just a few observations to throw into this. I had a pair of Rowland Model 201s, and bought a very early pair of Nuforce Ref 8, the 70W version. The Nuforce was almost impossible to listen to, being hard from the upper midband up. I then opened them up to discover Nuforce obviously had no idea of how to implement an audio design. Not surprising. It is a rare firm that can do the fundamental design and the commercial design too. So I started modding the heck out of it. In some cases all that was required was an improvement in a cap or a resistor quality level (such as they had a poyester cap as the input CD blocking cap - how could they?!!!). Everything else really came down to the fact the design was ultra-wideband, presumably because the theory says this will give you perfect phase response. But in the real world ultra-wideband meant noise in the system, and users would experience different noise issues depending on their situation and particularly in terms of cabling. It took a lot of experimenting to figure out the best ways to reduce the RFI without screwing with the sound but the biggest bang for the buck was putting a choke on the speaker output. Essentially I had to figure out how to eliminate noise getting in through the power cord, the interconnect and the speaker wires. After a lot of hours of 'fun', and very few dollars of playing around, these babies sound utterly glorious with a natural sweetness and delicacy, tied with a vice-like grip to the swing and flow of the music. The 70W version has no problems driving my Verity speakers. The Rowlands have been sold. I am hoping to get a pair of Ref9.02s to do a quick comparison soon. I suspect Nuforce has been doing mainly what I have been doing - implementing the original, and obviously excellent, design properly.

Redkiwi, I agree with your assessment of the crummy sound of the original Ref 8 (70w), and suspect the pooor design is what has resulted in the three or four revisions to the Ref 9 in the past year.

I can't make sense of these conflicting statements, though.

Nuforce obviously had no idea of how to implement an audio design.

and...

I suspect Nuforce has been doing mainly what I have been doing - implementing the original, and obviously excellent, design properly.

Huh?

I was trying to say that Nuforce appeared to have no idea how to implement an audio design when they made the Ref8, but that since then (like me) they have been working on getting the implementation right. Using their customers as Beta-testers is not a good look by the way Nuforce. My use of the words 'no idea' were driven by my incredulity that they had used a Polyester cap in the signal path. Do that and you can destroy the sound of any stereo system with a single blow.

Using their customers as Beta-testers is not a good look by the way Nuforce.

This has been my pet peeve with NuForce. As a customer, I like to think I'm buying the company's best effort, and a product that has been thoroughly Beta tested. I don't care to pay for that privilege.

Thanks for the clarification.

Maybe, about the revisions, but if you listen to the current model Ref 9.02, it's an awesome sounding amp that clearly outperforms the bulk of amplifiers on todays market and competes with some VERY expensive units.

True, the many revisions are annoying, but the results of these revisions are giving us sensational performance for the dollar. So consider that too...

I expect to receive a set of the new Reference 9SE amps later this month, and I can't wait! Nuforce is upgrading the internal parts and I believe they are cryo-treating the processing module and a couple other enhancements.

It should be very interesting to compare to the current Reference 9.02.