Nuforce amps

Anyone have had a demo with Nuforce amplifiers?

 

No, but most of the people I have talked to seem to like the UCD from Hypex more. Worth a listen though.

 

Over hyped, but above average.

 

I haven't heard any Nuforce products but their does seem to be a loyal customer base with lots of praise flying around.

I've also seen a polar opposite to that whereby the Nuforce Ref 9 and particularly the Ref 8 have been technically dissected and slammed for both average-poor measured performance and lacklustre subjective sound quality. These amps seem to somewhat prone to RF noise and EMI according to quite a few accounts.

Reading inbetween the lines I'd say the performance is somewhere between the 'fantastic' and the 'naff' assessments of this amp ie. a nice middle of the road amp. Nothing as fantastic as the enthusiatic followers would have you believe but certainly not as bad as some would suggest.

My advice would be to get a listen and preferably in your own home.

 

Hi,

This may be a usefull read:

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/reviews/article/1831/

Ciao T

 

Hang on a minute, Nuno, you've only just bought a Densen!

Fed up with it already?

 

I take it you don't like them

Perhaps it would be more balanced if you'd included a link to some praise too. It seems to me that there's more of that than the negatives.

Sander is a bit of drama queen and he had a small motive behind his absolute slating of the Nuforce when they refused to provide a sample and he got creative and sourced one elsewhere. His site is predominately computer hardware based and even here he's been in the thick of controversy before with an ATI and Nvidia debacle, I'm heavily into PC's especially the HT and entertainment PC side of things and this mean I visit a few of the good hardware forums regularly, when that ATI and Nvidia poostorm hit the fan with Sander in the middle, he become a joke to many and a godlike figure to the small minority(mainly 14 year old school boys who are anti-establishment). Some folks thrive of that stuff, you only need to look at the number of forums where Sander joined up and 'joined' in the discussion in both the ATI/Nvidia and the Nuforce controversies.

 

a local reviewer here praises very much the Nuforce amps,so my natural curiosity.But I will hear it at a local Lisbon Audioshow.

 

Sander is very knowledgeable, don't underestimate the guy... What he writes is in agreement with my findings, soundwise.

 

Hi,

I don't like switching Amp's. I have heard many and the best are regulary and soundly beaten by a "gainclone".

They have a long way to go yet.

Ciao T

 

I took a listen to one of these class D thingies and thought it sounded like someone taken the electronics out and just took a dump in the case.

I've been playing with gainclones recently with both LM3875 and LM3886 in various guises including Peter Daniels Patek SE incarnation of the LM3875 with Blackgate STD's on the power rails and Blackgate N types at coupling, all on fancy gold plated PCB's with Caddock and Riken resistors. I also had a go with SMPS's and snubberized PSU.

I wasn't impressed, the class D stuff sounded way better. I posted some stuff on DIYA about it all.

If only they could find a way to get some more distortion into these solid state amps, that would really make them so much more involving.

 

Hi,

Clearly, what sounds good to you and to me differs.

I would have thought your speakers would produce more than enough distortion, being the high distortion devices they are. Do you really feel the need to add more?

Ciao T

 

Of course, I pride myself on that fact based on what I've heard about your system.

What a feeble comeback, did your 'missus' help you with that one?

Look! I can stoop too:

Nah, that's the crap your using. And again, I've heard it said that your system can't handle anything much more complicated than a guy doing a banjo solo without distortion becoming audible. I guess its do as I say and not do as I do.

Sweet setup you've got there T(HD).

 

Hang on, so class D (switching amp?) stuff sounds like someone took a dump in it and the gainclone sounds worse? I better go for the class D amp.

 

We gotta humour the almighty T(HD), lest we incur his wrath and see the full force of his ironic system bashing.

Best thing to do Simon is not listen to the crap spouted over the internet and instead take a listen for yourself, its what I do and cuts through much of the BS, agenda's and personal opinions. I've built 6 amps in the last year alone, I could have read about the opinions and I did but you don't really know much until you've heard it for yourself.

The Hypex UcD700AD is a very capable amp too, the gainclones are 'fun' and definitely cheap but so are hookers and you wouldn't take one of those home.

 

Hi,

As usual, it seems you are happy to form your opinions on third and fourth hand handdowns. Be my guest.

It was not a comback, it was an observation of the objective performance of the drivers you use.

Not like you would know now, is it?

Has it ever occourse to you that if I take a driver that has mostly 2nd HD distortion at (say) 0.5% at 1W input and I take an amplifier that also has 0.5% 2nd HD dominated distortion I can arrange the system such that the 2nd had is largely cancelled?

Probably not, that would require actual analysis and thinking, instead of throwing around generically with prejudices and halfknowledge.

L8er T

 

I've been following a similar discussion over on the World Design forum. WD boss Peter Comeau made the following comment which neatly sums up class D amplification and is food for thought:

"Class D? Why ever are you interested in Class D? In fact why would anyone think that converting a perfectly good signal, whether analogue or digital, through a D to A or D to D converter, then applying huge levels of digital feedback and EQ to turn what is essentially a highly non-linear, heavily load dependant high frequency amplifier into something that resembles an audio amp. Then you pass the resultant dynamically compressed hf signal through an output filter, with inductors that run into saturation on peaks, to remove the hf carrier and call the remaining mush hi-fi? I don't think so!

And you want to do what? Drive the lowest coloration, lowest distortion, lowest impedance, highest capacitance speakers with it? And not expect it to sound like garbage? You've got to be joking.

 

Hi T(HD)(pun intended)

I forgot that there's only one opinion that matters to you and it certainly isn't 2nd or any order of hands old.

Of course it was. Sorry my mistake entirely.

Well get it done then!

Tenson can then come around and see if the distortion is less audible with complex music.

BTW Sorry to drag you into this Simon, you did mention that the distortion was audible but you've already pointed this out to T(HD) anyhow. Eitherway I'm sure your laughing as much as I am right now.

I could go on about how crap your skills around construction are. I guess if I suck at the theory you suck equally hard at the implementation.

This tit for tat is fun!

 

Thorsten - what are they talking about?
What's distorting (or not)?

 

Can we link to likewise opinions on tubes or mosfets or anything else audio related for that matter. Of course you'd take it or leave it depending on if it agreed or disagreed with your own experiences, so its all good.

Its all about what comes around goes around in this hobby - there's a positive to virtually every negative regardless of the particular topic.