Nuforce

Drubin, I was serious as a heart attack.

My favorite news quote from today's Reuters:

North Korea is working on a three-stage version of its long-range Taepo Dong missile, which could be operational in the next decade and would enable the country to directly target the continental United States," Bell said.

We are being threatened by the imminent Korean Big Dong.

I love it.

Nothing to do with audio. Refreshing, isnt' it?

Guys, guys. I’m surprised at some of your comments here. Especially since some of them appear so irresponsible and irreversibly damaging when in fact you haven’t a clue what Nuforce is doing behind the scenes or what their Marketing strategy might be.

For the record, the new Nuforce Ref 9SE special edition amps cost significantly more than the Ref 9.02 amps. They look the same on the outside but are significantly different inside.

And I’d also like to say that Nuforce has produced an amp whose sonic performance appears to be near impossible to achieve at less than $10k. And if you can’t tell that, then you might want to start looking at your other equipment because you obviously have some shortcomings somewhere.

Tvad, your statements are especially disappointing because as an owner of the APL 3910, you have experienced and/or witnessed many revisions to your ucdp but without apparent protest from you. Was APL giving you the best he could in his in his first revision? Perhaps it was the best he could reasonably and cost effectively do at that time. What about APL’s latest revision? And what about the next revision?

Why would you treat Nuforce and their amps any differently? In fact, Nuforce has received far more accolades regarding their performance than APL has. TAS magazine is indirectly and perhaps even directly competitively comparing these little amps to the ASR Emitter II $35k and other far more costly and acclaimed amps which TAS thinks are the cat’s meow. Well, apparently TAS and perhaps Positive-Feedback also thinks the Nuforce Ref 9.02s are the cat’s meow.

I also own the APL 3910 and thoroughly enjoy its superior performance so I certainly am not attempting to slam APL here because it is a fantastic unit. In fact, I think it’s great that Alex, like Nuforce, is always improving the already superior sonics.

But just because these companies come out with an upgrade does not mean we have to jump on it. And if you feel cheated somehow, get over it. You obviously thought the product was worth the money when you bought it. So it’s only in your own head if you feel cheated that the mfg’er has now improved on it.

The point is, name one manufacturer who is giving you their very best. If you are being honest, you can’t. Simply because you do not know what their best is, nor their motives, nor their marketing strategies.

Nor can anybody fully comprehend the true or imagined compromising the mfg’ers face, nor can we fully understand their resulting interpretation and execution of those true or imagined compromises.

Try this one. Which of us as parents would love to do things differently with regard to raising our firstborn?

In other words, younger parents and younger companies have more opportunity and often times more eagerness to learn and grow. In fact, it is typically the younger parent or company who is more attentive and willing to attempt improvements when confronted with shortcomings and/or new technologies or concepts.

Furthermore, there are plenty of companies who have stopped giving their best. Any company that thinks it has arrived and need not continue to perform R&D and provide new improved product is a dying company. But I don’t see anybody ragging on them.

Nuforce’s methodology of revisioning may not be to your liking and that’s fine. But I’ll put the performance of a Nuforce Ref 9.02 amp up against any you’ve tried or even read about and it may very well do more than hold its own. And from the looks of it, the best is yet to come.

Moreover, we all seem to have become accustomed to Microsoft’s and many other software companies’ many upgrades and revisions. Why don’t you guys go rag on them next time your computer hangs? Truly their products are inferior to anything Nuforce makes.

Yet for some reason some of you think that Nuforce products alone should remain stagnant. And if they do not remain stagnant, they are admitting failure or worse for previous released products. That’s being unreasonable and just plain silly.

To bring things a little closer to home, how many of us have swapped out component after component, cable after cable, or even system after system seeking to improve the sonics? What’s so wrong if a company does that with their own products? Not that I am claiming Nuforce is doing that, but if they were, is that not simply illustrating tremendous enthusiasm and pride-of-ownership knowing that no matter how good they or anybody else may their product is today, they know they can do better and are not going to wait until next year. If they were doing this, where’s the crime? And if they are doing this, at the rate their going, 12 months from now there may not be an amp in the universe that can touch them performance-wise.

As one who grew up in GM country (Michigan) I am quite aware that certain companies actually design product to let the customers unknowingly beta test the product at their expense. I’m thinking at the moment of the 1984 Corvette that msrp’ed for $25k. One year later, owners couldn’t give them away. But even that is a bit speculative on my part and yes some to many have become wary of corporations that practice such things.

To anybody’s knowledge, Nuforce has done no such thing. Nuforce, like APL, has been very accommodating to owners to upgrade to the current revision at little and sometimes no cost except shipping. Try that with some other manufacturers or products in other industries.

I’ve never listened to a NuForce Ref. 8 amp, but as I recall that so-called inferior product received some pretty decent reviews. But I know of others (who know their stuff) who have listened and owned the 8s who actually appreciated its sonic qualities.

Make no mistake about it, the Nuforce amps are serious performers and at very reasonable if not extremely affordable prices. In fact, I’d be surprised if there exists an amp under the $10k price that could go toe-to-toe with these beautiful little guys.

I’ve not had the opportunity to audition the new Ref 9 SEs, but what if per chance they blow away all competition? I fear some of you would be right back here posting your little nasties about how Nuforce is constantly improving their product line.

By your reckless and rather silly reasoning you repeatedly attempt to put Nuforce on the hook and you won’t let them off. But they’ve done something here that is almost revolutionary; uncompromised performance, size, aesthetics, cooling, weight and at an almost unheard of price.

I can only imagine how some you must freak out thinking your mothers must have been cheated knowing they have a half-full box of Tide detergent in the laundry room only to see the new and improved Tide on the TV commercials.

-IMO
Yes, I am a relatively new Nuforce dealer. But I was an owner before I became a dealer. And I became a dealer because I could not afford to buy the company.

>Redkiwi the comparison between Audiomatus and Nuforce- pretty close, but Audiomatus was supposedly better. i couldn't care less :)

"Any particular reason you are not interested in digital amps?"
in my opinion they still do not sound as good as a good mosfet amp can for example.

"If a digital amp sounded better than your current amp would you still rule it out on some grounds?"

no place for that, see. i own ATC passive speakers with their integraded. it does sound great, and the way to upgrade for me is to go for active ATC SCM50s or 100s, no separate amp within reasonable cost limits could match this active package.

"The only one that I can imagine is that with the rate of development then resale price could be problemmatic, but I suspect that is not it.."

its a cheap technology and slowly people are realizing it, so the prices are slowly falling. for e.g. JRDG prices for its digital amps seem to be absurd in comparison with some alternatives...

Tvad, your statements are especially disappointing because as an owner of the APL 3910, you have experienced and/or witnessed many revisions to your ucdp but without apparent protest from you. Was APL giving you the best he could in his in his first revision? Perhaps it was the best he could reasonably and cost effectively do at that time. What about APL’s latest revision? And what about the next revision?

There is some similarity here, however, NuForce's revisions are corrections to problems as far as I can ascertain from their own posts on Audocircle, whereas Alex's revisions are improvements based on new DACs, and other new design breakthroughs, not fixes to problems. Downtime is annoying, and it applies to the APL, too.

But just because these companies come out with an upgrade does not mean we have to jump on it. And if you feel cheated somehow, get over it. You obviously thought the product was worth the money when you bought it. So it’s only in your own head if you feel cheated that the mfg’er has now improved on it.

C'mon. You can't be serious? Get over it? If someone purchases a NuForce amp, and two months later there is a revision, and the owner feels cheated he/she should get over it? NuForce should pay for round trip shipping to have the amp upgraded, IMO.

By your reckless and rather silly reasoning you repeatedly attempt to put Nuforce on the hook and you won’t let them off.

Sorry, Stenho, I disagree with your characterization. Potential NuForce owners should be aware of the upgrade chain. Clearly, no NuForce owner is going to want their amps to be a revision behind because they're not getting the best sound NuForce has to offer, and the re-sale of their amps is taking a big hit by not being current. This applies to any audio product.

I certainly haven't said NuForce should remain stagnant. On the contrary, they should continue to develop and improve their products like any other company. Hey, it's up to potential owners to decide if they want to deal with possible downtime due to upgrades, but they should be aware of the possibility.

In fact, I’d be surprised if there exists an amp under the $10k price that could go toe-to-toe with these beautiful little guys.

I'll put my $10k VAC amp up against the NuForce any day of the week. Furthermore, in three years of ownership, I haven't one day of downtime due to the VAC.

NuForce is getting great reviews, and lots of them. They are probably well deserved. However, if I was considering buying a NuForce amplifier, I'd want to know what I was getting into...in all respects, including any potential downside to ownership. System downtime due to continual upgrades is a downside to ownership of any audio product.

NuForce performance better than almost anything up to $10K?

I would love to hear someone A/B the H2oAudio Signature mono's ($5,500 retail) with either the 9.02 or the 9 SE, or next months 9.1 SE...