Negative Review of Nuforce Amplifier Ref 8

kfr01 · « **on:** 6 Mar 2006, 06:38 pm »

While I agree that Nuforce has every right to remove this from their circle, it may be useful to the masses that are considering buying a Nuforce amplifier on the used market.

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1828/

Readers should take note that the new Ref 9 appears to have fixed many of the negative aspects the author of the review found.

I wish the author of the review had used a Ref 9.

However, as Ref 8's are still widely available on audiogon and ebay as "giant killers," I think this review may add value to the audio marketplace of ideas.

If this spares one audiocircle reader from making an uninformed purchasing decision, I do not feel it should be altogether removed from audiocircle.com.

Please note that I have no personal experience with Nuforce amplifiers, nuforce, or the author of the review. One of my pet peeves and problems with the entire audio industry is the relative lack of reviewing candor and honesty. Not all the products out there can be amazing values at their price point and compete with products some high multiple of their price.

James Romeyn · « **Reply #1 on:** 6 Mar 2006, 07:06 pm »

I wonder why I can only open the first page & not the succeeding links to the rest of the reveiw?

kenk · « **Reply #2 on:** 6 Mar 2006, 07:08 pm »

Quote from: RibbonSpeakers.net

I wonder why I can only open the first page & not the succeeding links to the rest of the reveiw?

It works for me. Maybe just refresh the page.

James Romeyn · « **Reply #3 on:** 6 Mar 2006, 08:55 pm »

I got it, thanks, a temporary glitch.

TheChairGuy · « **Reply #4 on:** 6 Mar 2006, 09:00 pm »

As long as this topic is a fair, relatively restrained and balanced one it'll stay here...if it veers too far off course into a 'let's-shit-on-Nuforce' topic, it gets heaved into IGWB.

I have no vested interest in protecting Nuforce from any undue criticism, I just respect that they've been a good, informative (you may judge whether some or all of that information is misguided) 'shopkeeper' here at Audio Circle for a while now.

Thanks in advance for your civility

John / TCG - Moderator

miklorsmith · « **Reply #5 on:** 6 Mar 2006, 09:06 pm »

I demo'd the Ref. 9's and didn't care for them. A seasoned listener who came over thought they were great. Like most things, it's a matter of preference.

kfr01 · « **Reply #6 on:** 6 Mar 2006, 09:44 pm »

Quote from: miklorsmith

I demo'd the Ref. 9's and didn't care for them. A seasoned listener who came over thought they were great. Like most things, it's a matter of preference.

miklorsmith has a good point. There seems to be a market for whatever rocks your boat in audio these days; this is a good thing. i.e., tubes, single driver designs, line-arrays, active amplification, giant 100lb class a/ab amplifiers, tiny t-amps for $40.00, etc.

No implementation of any technology measures perfectly and all but the most expensive products make some compromises to be commercially viable.

These compromises inevitably lead to differing sonic characteristics of components. This is also a good thing! How lucky are we to live in a time where we can debate the subjective merits of an audio component, buy, sell, and trade components at will, and generally have an almost endless universe of sonic options on our search for audio nirvana.

Having said that, like any other market full of goods, the more information the public has, the more they will be able to make informed and efficient buying decisions.

I reposted the link above to promote an informed used market of nuforce amplifiers. The readers and prospective buyers may disregard the review, flame the reviewer, applaud him, or use it to decide the price they are willing to pay for a used Ref 8; I don't care. I simply wanted the information to be more available.

nathan_klassen · « **Reply #7 on:** 6 Mar 2006, 10:52 pm »

Hifi+ in their most recent North American issue also posted a negative NuForce review.

James Romeyn · « **Reply #8 on:** 6 Mar 2006, 11:18 pm »

I couldn't agree more with kfr01. I don't think anyone could express that view better or with more pith. Well said.

Rocket · « **Reply #9 on:** 7 Mar 2006, 12:13 am »

Hi,

Firstly i don't own a pair of nuforce amps and i'm currently using a spread spectrum technologies 'son of ampzilla'.

I've extensively heard the nuforce amps at my dealer and i totally disagree with the review. I understand that everyone has their own taste in sound but the amps don't sound as bad as what the reviewer states.

I've had a listen to their p8 preamp and was impressed by its performance for the asking price.

Regards

Rods

Parnelli777 · « **Reply #10 on:** 7 Mar 2006, 12:51 am »

I would say that guy quite effectively tore Nuforce a new one. The cat's outta the bag, so to speak- and 3 blocks away.

The RF issue by itself would keep me far away from these things, even if the rest of what he said is totally wrong. And the RF problem is the one thing that keeps popping up with these amps. One should never have to be this cautious with choice of preamp, passive or not, power cords, etc. It's worse than ridiculous. Also, the measurements he took speak for themselves- and it doesn't look so hot at all, even to a "layman". Perhaps he was looking to knock Nuforce down a few pegs, but I doubt it myself.

Kind of a shame too, as I live only a few miles from Nuforce.

James Romeyn · « **Reply #11 on:** 7 Mar 2006, 01:55 am »

Two dealers with ears I respect sell the Nuforce & like it. One especially likes the Ref 9 & preamp combo. The one Rocket heard may be quite different from the review models. We'll never know unless the reviewer edits his oversight & includes the SN's.

TNT · « **Reply #12 on:** 7 Mar 2006, 02:42 am »

Hey Jim R, if you want to listen to Ref9 for yourself you can PM me. I'm about 10 minutes away from Petaluma, just off 101.

Wind Chaser · « **Reply #13 on:** 7 Mar 2006, 03:16 am »

A couple of observations...

First I do not own a Nuforce amp, nor have I heard one. Neither I do have any vested interest in Nuforce. Having said that it quite obvious some folks around here just get off on slagging Nuforce. Ever since Nuforce announced they were pulling out of Danny's D amp event did this became apparent. You can comb through that thread now...

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=24753

...but you will see that all of those particular comments have been removed. (obviously not by Nuforce - brj take note)

On to the review by Hardware Analysis. If you look on their website you will notice almost all of their reviews are of computer related hardware. At this time they have a grand total 4 audio reviews to their name.

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

I posted the link so you could see for yourself. Yep, 4 audio reviews! That's a fountain of audio reviewing experience from someone who's clearly out of his element. But Sandor Sassen is no "Johnny come lately." He has been fed up with the computer industry as of late, feeling like a martyr for being badmouthed and ridiculed by his fellow journalists. And so he has dusted off the cobwebs from his audio days, "an old hobby that's been slumbering for the past decade or so..." in efforts to release some tension. In other words, he couldn't stand the heat in his own domain. Time to find a new and more comfortable kitchen.

There’s no shortage of self appointed audio experts, so when you are the new kid on the block you need attention fast. You've got to make a name for yourself or you might have to go back to from whence you came. In Sandor's case, that would imply having to suck up the heat and deal with his cruel comrades. The easier thing to do of course is run and hide. Then take all that baggage and dump it on some poor sod to the advantage of making name for yourself.

Well Sandor Sassen, is it any wonder Nuforce refused to send you their product? Why would a manufacturer of audio equipment want to send their product off to be reviewed by someone with virtually no experience a bad reputation for the experience he has in another field?

One thing Sandor has proven is that if he’s determined to do something, he’ll succeed. Unable to procure a sample through normal channels, he “acquires” some through another source with the serial numbers removed. Atta boy, Sandor! Experienced reviewers are prudent enough to know where to draw the line and when not to proceed.

In Sandor’s novice review of the Nuforce Reference 8, there is no mention of the associated equipment used in the listening test. One can only wonder what the context of this meaningless exercise is. Not only that, he tells us nothing about his listening room. Is it 3 concrete walls with a toilet in one corner across from a bunk bed beside jail bars? There is no mention of the music or recordings being used. Was it AM radio? Who knows? All we know for sure is that the serial numbers are missing. Atta boy, Sandor!

NealH · « **Reply #14 on:** 7 Mar 2006, 03:47 am »

The RF issue bothers me too. I would like to see the plot of conducted emissions on this amplifier as well as the configuration employed for the CE test. I had an earlier Bel Canto amp which also was an unintentional radiator in the classic sense of the term. The new evo model effectively resolved the conducted and radiated RF issues and, is a very nice sounding amplifier. Another item about the BC amp I favor is the linear power supply that is employed. Switch-mode supplies on the front end of a power amp make me nervous. Other than being less expensive to implement on a power amp, I am not sure of the reason behind them and, the issues with RF are compounded. The higher efficiency numbers on switching amplifiers are dominated by the output switching topology, not the power supply topology.

I agree though, it would have been nice to see the review of the Ref 9. Or, both the 8 and 9 compared. I suspect the 9 improves on the 8 quite a bit otherwise the later revision would not have been launched.

rustydoglim · « **Reply #15 on:** 7 Mar 2006, 03:48 am »

Under no circumstances did I even criticize his reviews or measurement. All I requested and corrected was that the review was based on an outdated version of Ref 8. We do sell some surplus Ref 8/8b but they are all upgraded to version 8.02. We do not sell outdated version. Anything that come back into our factory get updated!

The Ref 8 that he tested was really ancient. Notice that there is no common mode choke on the speaker terminals.
I can go buy a Toyota that was made in 1980, run some test and concluded that they made bad quality cars. He has never contacted us until we saw the posting on audiocircle. Now he wanted us to send a new pair of Ref 9 to him? We are nice people but not stupid.

I don't know who is Wind Chaser, but after reading his post about Sander, I am not going to send any products for him to review

kfr01 · « **Reply #16 on:** 7 Mar 2006, 03:51 am »

Wind Chaser:

Nice observations.

The more information the public has, the better, in my opinion. Diversity of views, opinions, and sources can only be a good thing.

How useful is a chorus of reviews that madly agree with eachother?

His review at the very least raises some questions for people looking into Nuforce Ref 8 used amplifiers.

Questions, information, diversity of views; all good things.

Don't like it? Do exactly what you're doing. Do exactly what I'd expect any intelligent being to do - analyze the situation and decide how much weight to place on the source.

In the midst of your sarcastic post (not a knock, I appreciate sarcasm), you added some potentially valuable information about the source.

More information. Thank you. This is positive, this is good.

KJ · « **Reply #17 on:** 7 Mar 2006, 04:22 am »

Quote from: Parnelli777

And the RF problem is the one thing that keeps popping up with these amps

Based on my discussion with Tranh from NPhysics at CES, RFI was accepted over distortion as the lesser of two evils in the current SMPS design. Let me preface my next couple of sentences by saying I am definitely not an electrical engineer by education. To that extent, I hope I convey this properly.

The high rate of switching in SMPS between the positive and negative terminals of the dampening bridge can cause an overlap. This overlap occurs as a result of the bridge's inductor not being able to discharge power quickly enough resulting in RFI. To my understanding, this was accepted over the more common method of correcting RFI in a highly dampened architecture. This method I believe entails the insertion of a break at the moment when switching between the positive and negative ends would overlap. This break results in some distortion which is a detriment Nuforce wished to avoid.

Again, I am certainly not an electrical engineer by education. Perhaps Nuforce can post a more just explanation on their web site rather than my crude summary. I believe Nuforce's next design implements a method to avoid both RFI and distortion while maintaining a high dampening factor, but that is for them to announce/discuss.

Quote from: Parnelli777

Kind of a shame too, as I live only a few miles from Nuforce.

Maybe you should swing by for a demo and listen to them yourself.

brj · « **Reply #18 on:** 7 Mar 2006, 05:09 am »

Quote from: Wind Chaser

Ever since Nuforce announced they were pulling out of Danny's D amp event did this became apparent. You can comb through that thread now...

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=24753

...but you will see that all of those particular comments have been removed. (obviously not by Nuforce - brj take note)

I am unaware of any posts that were deleted from that thread. You may, however, be remembering comments from one of the related threads in the NTAJ circle, the GR Research circle, or the Audio Central circle.

Rocket · « **Reply #19 on:** 7 Mar 2006, 05:27 am »

Hi,

Well nuforce has fixed many of the problems which were evident in their earlier version of the reference 8 series amp. Anyway its always best to have a listen to a product with your own gear before you buy one. After all we're all after a different sound.

Regards

Rod