Risk to Ref 9.02 if disconnected whilst "on"

ShadowZA · « **on:** 21 Jan 2006, 09:04 pm »

I have heard the Ref 9 in action at the dealer in Cape Town and find that the ratio of financial cost to sound quality is unbeatable when compared to other amplifiers out there. To put it mildly, I was blown away!

I do understand that NuForce is relatively new. As such I would like to encourage the NuForce team to keep on working, improving and delivering as they are doing at present. Success, I believe, is inevitable.

I do have some technical questions, however:

To what extent is the Ref 9.02 amp at risk should the following occur?

1. The Ref 9.02 amp is on. The pre-amp is on. All components are connected. Source is not playing but idle. A speaker cable mistakenly becomes detached from a speaker rendering the Ref 9.02 on but disconnected.

2. Same as 1. above except that instead of a speaker cable being disconnected, the pre-amp input is disconnected from the Ref 9.02 whilst it (the Ref 9.02) is on.

Thanks.

rustydoglim · « **Reply #1 on:** 21 Jan 2006, 09:28 pm »

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To put it mildly, I was blown away!

No disagreement here.

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To what extent is the Ref 9.02 amp at risk should the following occur?
....

For both cases, there is a chance that the amps could overheat. BUT the overheat protection that we put in since 9.02 will shutdown the amp. We advice that you turn off the power switch and let it cool down for 15 minutes and then everything will be good.

We have shipped and upgraded hundreds of version 9.02 amps and so far in a few cases (<10) of overheating that have been reported to us, customers have no problem after the amps have been restarted.

We continue to monitor the problems on the field. Since Nov 1st, we have very few defective units. There is one amp with a power supply that gone bad, one that we still need to investigate. May be there are one or two more cases. That's a pretty good record for high end audio when we're dealing with high power. In every situation since we begin shipping products in 2005, we took care of the problem. Nobody is left hanging

. Ask around and you'll find that we have tbe best service.

Reference series products are upgradeable so unless we fall behind in technology, you'll continue to have the option to obtain the best amp on the planet without breaking the bank

nuforce-casey · « **Reply #2 on:** 21 Jan 2006, 09:42 pm »

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1. The Ref 9.02 amp is on. The pre-amp is on. All components are connected. Source is not playing but idle. A speaker cable mistakenly becomes detached from a speaker rendering the Ref 9.02 on but disconnected.

Not advisable, but wouldn't be a problem as long as any fault condition will trigger an automatic shut-down.

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2. Same as 1. above except that instead of a speaker cable being disconnected, the pre-amp input is disconnected from the Ref 9.02 whilst it (the Ref 9.02) is on.

The amp will not be affected at all, but universal to all power amp, your speaker will receive a big blow. XLR connection will be fine, and professional audio engineers do the 'hot swap' all the time because on XLR, the ground is not disconnected first, unlike RCA.
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ShadowZA · « **Reply #3 on:** 22 Jan 2006, 06:49 am »

Thanks for the replies. Appreciated

ctviggen · « **Reply #4 on:** 22 Jan 2006, 12:33 pm »

What I'd like to see for these amps is a low voltage on. I'm going to be leaving all three of mine on all the time because I don't want to have to manually turn them on. By the way, what is the idle power requirements for each unit (Ref. 9)?

rustydoglim · « **Reply #5 on:** 22 Jan 2006, 01:24 pm »

5 to 6 watt during idle

ctviggen · « **Reply #6 on:** 22 Jan 2006, 01:28 pm »

Oh! That's not even worth turning off. I'm sure a system to look for a low voltage signal and turn on the amp would burn that much.