[Albireo]

A couple weeks ago, I lugged these critters up three flights of stairs and they've graced my living room with wondrous sound ever since:



Very beautiful speakers, especially with the Burlinga faceplates:



Review will be forthcoming, but will have to wait until I sort out some equipment. Also, please ignore the mess and WAF-compatible positioning of the speakers: I just moved to Boston and have yet to sort out my apartment.

BTW, those are Magnepan MG1.6 planars standing silently to the right. Associated equipment will include NuForce Reference 8.02 amps, Lavry DA10 and Bel Canto DAC3 DACs, a customized Placette Audio RVC preamp, PS Audio Transcendent interconnects, PS Audio Resolution and Audience AU24 speaker cables.

Thanks for looking!

[Albireo]

Hi,

With due apologies to the real reviewers out there, I would like to post some remarks on what is in almost all respects the best speaker I have ever had the pleasure of owning. I received the NuForce S-9 standmounts just over a month ago, and although a quarter of it was spent burning in new parts -- plus I haven’t been able to give the S-9s nearly as much attention as I would like, due to work – I felt I couldn’t keep quiet about them. So here are some initial impressions, if you will.

My speaker history: I purchased a pair of Magnepan MG1.6 planar speakers about two years ago, and although they were far from perfect I kept holding on to them. A litany of dynamic speakers have also passed through my system over the years -- Dynaudio Audience 52, Quad 21L floorstanders, ACI Sapphire XL, Spendor S3/5se, Triangle and Paradigm standmounts, etc. – but in every case some inconsistency would spoil the mood. To take some of the above speakers as examples: the Dynaudio standmounts were too forward in the upper-midrange, the Quad 21L too bright in the mid-to-upper treble, the ACI standmount by contrast too subdued in top octave, and the Spendors a bit bumped in the low-treble. It wasn't just the frequency aberration that bothered me: there was also something "out-of-character" about the aberration itself. I liken it to an over-enthusiastic child singing carols with adults -- and vice versa -- or when one instrument in a string quartet is strung with metal strings when the rest are using gut. I despaired of ever finding a dynamic speaker that had the same consistency of character throughout the frequency range that Magnepans are spectacularly and naturally endowed with.

At the same time, the Magnepan MG1.6s are by no means free of blame. Their main claim to notoriety is brightness in the low-to-mid treble, coupled with a slight shyness in the top octave (the Maggies have other faults as well, but the treble infractions are the most audible). The *character* of Maggie treble is the same as the rest of the speaker, there's just too much of it. If I tried to bring down the overall treble level using an attenuating resistor, the sound became too dull. If I tried to bring the upper treble back with a bypassing capacitor, I started noticing the combined sound of the resistor+capacitor, even when I used very high-quality parts (like heat-sinked Caddock resistors). In any case, I could never get the compensation curve exactly right. It wasn't until I started dipping my toes into the waters of digital loudspeaker/room correction did I finally understand the extent of the problem. I will come back to this in Part 2 below.

So I found myself stuck with Maggies – no great burden, but still – and less-than-enamoured by any dynamic speakers I could lay my hands on. That's where things stood for awhile, until a few months ago when I walked into NuForce's offices in Milpitas, California to see two unusual and attractive standmounts in the listening room. They were the oval-ish prototypes of the S-9 speakers, but even then the sound was simply spectacular. When I subsequently found out that the fundamental design was due to Bob Smith (of SP Tech) I stated categorically to Jason and Casey that I would purchase these speakers as soon as I could afford them. Luckily, a couple months later an S-9 demo that had been making the rounds in Hong Kong became available. They were shipped back to Kingsbury, Indiana for Bob to bring up to production-level specs -- in particular a new tweeter was installed and the XO modified to compensate -- and I received the finished speakers a couple weeks ago. They've been playing 24/7 since then, although to my ears the speakers were fully burned-in at around 250 hours. By this time I had also moved to Boston and my listening room increased in size from a piddling 10w x 12l x 7h to a rather larger 14w x 17.5l x 9h. In Part 2 I allude to how this changed the relative strengths and weaknesses of the speakers I had on hand.

Sound Quality

The S-9s are supreme speakers: in most ways they are laughably better than anything I've tried before and easily comparable to any speaker I've heard, anywhere. They just sound right from the get-go, almost anywhere in the room. Because they sound so realistic and true to the music, it almost seems a crime to break down the S-9s' performance. Where to start? Well, from the midrange up, they display three concurrent traits: outstanding detail, sublimely-balanced frequency response, and a complete lack of fatigue. The first -- detail -- is marvelously independent of the S-9s' ability to sound musical. In my experience, the best speakers don't sound overtly musical or detailed: they just sound realistic. This is the case with the S-9. Somehow these speakers reproduce all the emotion in the music yet play the detail game with the best analytical systems. When I first listened to them casually, all I heard was music, real instruments, frighteningly-alive voices, etc. I would have been happy with just that, yet when I later sat down and listened more carefully I was caught off-guard by all the additional information the speakers were reproducing. You can definitely hear the studio monitor heritage of these speakers, in the best sense possible.

This happy marriage of musicality and detail was just the first of several new experiences for me. The S-9's neutrality and coherency was the second. In a sense, listening to the S-9 was an educational experience. I don't think I've ever heard a truly flat speaker, and to be honest it was a bit underwhelming at first. I live in an apartment and out of a sense of social responsibility I very rarely listen to my music at realistic volumes. At the very low volumes I listen to normally, the S-9s can sound a little boring. After all, Fletcher-Munson curves exist for a good reason. On the other hand, while the Maggies sound more lively at these volumes -- probably due to their brightness – the planars get a bit prickly as you turn up the wick. Heck, they sound a little tense even when played quietly! By comparison, the S-9 really come into their own when the volume goes up, and more importantly, they get loud seemingly without limits. You just want to keep cranking it higher and higher, and all the S-9s do is become bigger-sounding. They don't suddenly start turning hard or brittle, or get brighter, honkier, or boomier: they simply never lose composure. Those of you who own high-quality headphones will understand what I mean when I say that headphones spoil you for volume: you can keep the turning up the music louder and louder and the sound never gets harsh or distorted, just more magnificent. That's why headphones can be dangerous for your hearing: you don't have the usual driver break-up cues to tell you that you might be pushing things too far. The S-9s are uncannily like headphones in this respect, and will likely satisfy the demands of those who like to finish listening sessions with the sweet aftertaste of tinnitus. More to the point, I’m 100% confident that the S-9 will produce all the symphony-level dynamics that some crave, assuming they have the amplification to support those volumes.

I mention headphones: the S-9s are the first speakers by a country mile that have equaled my headphone setup in the ability to sound realistic. It is simply amazing to have neutrality and transparency in three drivers to match that of a single driver, extremely low-distortion device such as the Sennheiser HD600 or Etymotic ER-4S. Furthermore, I would've thought my Magnepans would have trumped the S-9 in speed: not a chance! The Magnepan's may have the theoretical advantage in the lightness of their drivers, but what speed they may have now seem hidden by their frequency deviations. What sounds fast -- due to brightness, for example -- doesn't translate to actual detail. Furthermore, there is a simplicity to the sound and a touch of grain with the Magnepans that become obvious when compared to the ultra-detailed and sophisticated S-9s.

(This posting continues below)

[Albireo]

(This continues the post above)

As you might expect, the S-9s also image and soundstage superbly. I have been continually disappointed with dynamic speakers in comparison to planars due to the former's tendency to collapse the soundstage onto one or the other speaker as you move around, or sometimes even when you don't. I'm not saying soundstaging is what audio reproduction is all about, but it helps! Somehow these speakers manage to give me a semblance of the broad, position-independent soundstage a la dipoles while delivering pin-point imaging (not something dipoles are good at). Whether this is due to excellent XO judgement calls, impeccable driver matching, or the tweeter waveguide -- or serendipity, who knows -- the soundstaging and imaging are very enjoyable for both the brain and the heart. And unlike the diffuse imaging of the Magnepans, the S-9s easily let me hear "into" the recording; this contributes to the impression that I can hear far more detail through the S-9s than the Magnepans. Incidentally, I achieved the best combination of center fill and image width with the S-9s slightly toed-in so that I could still see a good bit of the inside wall of the speakers at my listening position.

The bass is also very enjoyable. Since my prior speaker experience is predominantly with standmounts I'm probably not the best guy to be judging deep bass, but to me the S-9s dig down deep with little loss of tightness compared to the frequencies higher up. It's not just a matter of extension, but the honesty of how low it goes. Rather just being able to theoretically produce noise at, say 40Hz at -6dB, the S-9s really go that low without apparent attenuation. Moreover, in the range that the Magnepan MG1.6s can reproduce bass, the S-9's play it comparably tightly. This is high praise! Of course, the S-9's bass punch is far greater than what the MG1.6s can manage. Even better, the bass is also easy to manage: Bob mentioned that mere inches was all that was needed to dial in the bass, and he was right. The best placement for overall bass response was roughly the rule of 2/3's, with the speakers a bit farther out from the rear wall than from the side walls. I haven't gotten it completely optimized -- the Behringer DEQ2496's RTA (real-time analyzer) makes this amply clear -- but I almost don't care because even when casually placed the S-9’s bass is well-behaved. However, due to WAF aesthetics I can't have the speakers "out there" in the middle of my room all the time. When the speakers are placed within 1.5' of the rear wall -- way too close, in other words -- the bass becomes overripe and boomy, but this is almost completely resolved by lightly stuffing a sock in each speaker's two rear vents. The key here is not to plug up the vent completely, or you start losing too much bass extension.

Finally, in my opinion the S-9 are beautiful speakers. The burlinga faceplates are wonderful counterpoints to the  plywood, and even their grain matches well with the layering behind it. For dynamic speakers with visible drivers -- there is no grill for the S-9s -- they have good WAF factor, at least according to my girlfriend. I have the extraordinary good luck of ending up with a woman who actually likes the look of my (white) Magnepans over any dynamics that I've had, so her good opinion of the S-9s is meaningful.

I think Jason Lim and Casey Ng have hit one out of the park with the S-9. I remember having a moment of panic when the guys told me that NuForce was trying to break into the speaker scene -- surely they couldn't repeat the same success that they enjoyed with their Reference amps? -- but I shed all my doubts as soon as they played the prototype for me. The production S-9 is even more sophisticated and balanced than the prototype! These speakers are neutral, extended, musical, outstandingly detailed, powerfully dynamic, and have great aesthetics. Of course when I planned to jump into this price range I expected many of these attributes, but to be honest I didn't expect to get them all in one package. For me, the most impressive attribute of the S-9s is their musicality and the lack of fatigue paired with transparency. The NuForce crew clearly have been doing their homework and found the right people to design and tweak their new speaker. Casey in particular has a keen sense of good sonics that has obviously served NuForce very well. That these guys are also good and honest human beings makes the whole NuForce experience a happy one for me. I wish them the best in their future endeavors: with their Reference amps and now the S-9 speakers, they couldn't be starting with bigger bangs!

Associated equipment:

Transports - M-Audio Transit and Sony DVP-S7700
Sources - Lavry DA10 and Bel Canto DAC3
Preamps - Customized Placette Audio Remote Volume Control, Bel Canto PRe3
Amplifiers - NuForce Reference 8.02
Speakers - NuForce S-9, Magnepan MG1.6, Spendor S3/5se
Cables - PS Audio Transcendent and Placette Audio interconnects, PS Audio Resolution and Audience AU24 speaker cables

Listening room characteristics:

Length: 17.5 feet
Width: 14 feet
Height: 9 feet
Composition: Plaster walls and ceilings, hardwood floors. Two nearly full-height windows on rear wall, covered with blinds.

[Double Ugly]

Glad you're happy with the new speakers, Albireo.

Though I've never heard the S-9s, I own a couple pairs of Bob's speakers, and believe I have a fair idea about your experience with them.

Nice, well-written review, BTW.  Plenty of direct comparisons, and you clearly put a lot of thought into the descriptions of what you hear and how it differs from what you heard with other speakers (assuming you heard it at all).  No apology necessary IMO, to reviewers or anyone else.

Regards,

-Jim

[ooheadsoo]

Your review matches my impressions of them when I heard them at the LA unveiling of the speaker.  What a huge sound from a relatively diminutive speaker!  Unreal.  Looks really nice, too.  Good to hear you found a solution for the bass when put in a bad spot. 

[95bcwh]

I heard them at John Casler's place. Very nice speaker indeed...

[Russell Dawkins]

(This continues the post above)

 The NuForce crew clearly have been doing their homework and found the right people to design and tweak their new speaker. Casey in particular has a keen sense of good sonics that has obviously served NuForce very well.

My impression is that the lion's share of the credit for the design and realization of these speakers goes to Bob Smith of SP Technology and the credit due the Nuforce crew is in recognizing and employing Bob's talent.

I like to see credit given where it's due.

[rustydoglim]

I like to see credit given where it's due.

See our website for credit.
It is a collaborative effort in not only recognizing Bob's talent, but also working (and funding the entire project, including new production processes) with Bob for almost a year to push through many design (including sonic improvement) and production challenges.  Basically we want the performance of Revelation in a small and unique cabinet.
As a result of this huge effort, both companies share the intellectual property. Read the S-9 brochure and you'll come to realize that we'll selling S-9 too cheap.

See http://www.nuforce.com/partner/Brochure/S-9-brochure-lowres.pdf for a wonderful article of S-9.  We're printing thousands of copies of the brochure to promote S-9 and you can be sure that people are going to recognize Bob if S-9 is very successful.

[duggie]

...Read the S-9 brochure and you'll come to realize that we'll selling S-9 too cheap...

and, what, exactly, is "too cheap"?  list price is how much?   aa

thanks...

[woodsyi]

Duggie,

Happy new year. $4.5K.   First I thought it said $2.25K and was ready to try them but it was for 1 speaker. 

[rustydoglim]

That was 2006 intro price.  It is $5500 per pair now.

This is what Robert Greene said in TAS Feburary issue:

"...The S9s did well on the ultimate test, reproduced versus live music. As it happened, I was doing much of my listening to them during a time when my orchestra (St. Matthew’s Chamber Orchestra) was preparing for a concert. So when I listened to things like the Sitkovetsky/Bach Goldberg Variations, in an arrangement for string orchestra [Nonesuch], I had an almost immediate memory of the real sound of a string orchestra. Few speakers fail to be humiliated by such a recent memory of reality. The S9s were really convincing in this nearly direct comparison with live music. And with their unstrained dynamic behavior, they were convincing on large-scaled orchestral music like full orchestra as well. The famous Byron Janis Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto on Mercury was very well done from top to bottom...."

S-9 is very costly to make and it is meant to compete with those costing $10K and above.