[DaveX]

.....and it's all bad apart from saying that they will play loud. What's going on, did they have a faulty pair. I'm puzzled after reading mostly positive things about the reference 9's.

[rustydoglim]

We have no idea what's going on with HiFi+ but we'll proudly present it under Bad Review section  
A pair of Ref 8 was sent to HiFi+ and it was there for months and nobody touches it. Then the at last minute one of our UK dealer submitted Ref 9 since HiFi+ requested for it.  Throughout this whole time, HiFi+ never contacted us.  We have no idea if the Ref 9 was even broken in at HiFi+.

We at NuForce are very sure of our product and don't shy away from bad reviews.  If a product is bad and a company manages to get one or two good reviews, customers will eventually find out and reviewer will be embarassed. On the other hand, if a reviwer gives us a bad review contrary to so many overwhelmingly good reviews (from various online websites and reivewers), he will also have to explain to his readers what he has done.

So the bottom line is this, we publish all the reviews, good or bad!!!
You form your own opinions and go listen to it and judge it for yourself  

[timothyharnett]

I've just read it myself.  Gregory also mentions that he doesn't like Flying Mole either.  Personally, I thought the Flying Mole were impressive.  

It may be a personal taste issue where the writer just doesn't like digital amps.

[John Casler]

As I sit here listening to the Ref 9's on my system, I too find it remarkable that there can be too much criticism of these amps.

I am auditioning a couple new (and low priced) CD and DVD (SACD/DVDA) players and the accuracy and ability to "reach in" to a recording and uncover detail is truly remarkable.

I would say the if we see a bad review, it "IS NOT" because of a digital sound, since I don't think the NuFORCE suffer from this.  I would submit that it is system synergy, mismatch, or reviewer preference mismatch.

Not every component will make every listener happy.

[zybar]

Is the review online?

While I didn't think the Ref 9's were as good as some people made them out to be, they are still a good amp and a very good value.

But as John said, could be system synergy issues or maybe it just rubbed the reviewer the wrong way.

George

[Agisthos]

How much advert space had your uk distributor bought in the magazine Jason?

[JayCee]

Hi everyone. This is my first post on AudioCircle and I have to inform you that I was the instigator of the Hi-FI+ reveiw.
I had read a lot of good things about NuForce and their Reference 8 amplifiers so I took the plunge and bought a set without any demo as they were not then available in the UK.
I was so impressed with these amps that I asked Jason if he would like me to try and get a review here in the UK and it was decided to go with Hi-Fi+. Well we all know how that ended up.
If you read Roy Gregory's review he states that he swapped out pre-amps and speakers to try and get the best out of the NuForce Reference 9's but what I find odd is that he did not think about the cables that he was using. There are many comments on how susceptible these amps are to the type of cables that are used and I know that RG uses Nordost Valhalla which I think are a high capacitance cable and probably not the type to use with these amps. It was as though he went out of his way not to get the best out of them. (probably if they had been distributed by Audiofreaks they would have got a rave review)
Anyway my apologies to Jason and all at NuForce for garnering these truely undeserved  comments and hope that all the positive stuff out there will place this particular review where it belongs.
Let me say one other thing about the problem most guys are having with RF issues. Well, I had the same problem, well, no I had a triple problem as I have three tuners. I found that my McIntosh MR67 tube tuner was rendered useless and also my Eagle tube tuner was even worse but my third tuner, an old Armstrong tube mono tuner worked fine. So that's the one I have used for the last six months or so. Then I suddenly got a bit aggrieved at having my superb McIntosh sitting there gathering dust so I thought that I would try it again and guess what! it works perfectly and to put iceing on the cake so does my Eagle tuner. Why, I do not know, nothing has changed but my RF problem has gone, Any thoughts, anyone?

[rustydoglim]

How much advert space had your uk distributor bought in the magazine Jason?

Before the bad review was published in HiFi+, we spent zero amount. May be that's why  
The review was handled by a dealer. The new distributor HIAudio just came onboard.  Ad spending won't buy us raving review but I think if we or the dealer has been an advertiser, at least HiFi+ will spend more effort in trying to evaluate the amp.

I don't think John (Jaycee) need to apologize for the bad review. Hey, at least it proves that we didn't go around to make up all the raving reviews.  May be Roy will turn around and like the amp after he tries with different cables. This situation has happened before. Chris Marten initially didn't like the Ref 9 when we included (by mistake) a custom power cord without AC ground.  Fortunately the source of the problem was identified (Nuforce amp need good AC ground to divert the noise) and the rest is history.