[nicksgem10s]

So what is the actual price for the early buyers?  I read through this thread and seem to have missed it.  Thanks.

[woodsyi]

4.5k

[rustydoglim]

By the way, A&E Television Networks bought a whole set of Nuforce products, including S-9 for their green room (place where staff or actors relax before or after the show).
We are not allow to show any picture due to various manufacturers advertising agreements that they have with the big guys but we can mention it 

 , I think Bob should be going back to work on minimum wage building S-9 instead of reading AC and posting long (but nice) article to defend us.  Oh man, this poor guy and his son (also called Jason) have been camping at the factory.  Even if we have the financial resources to last long marketing S-9, Bob need to go home to get a life!  Well, Bob will get his satisfaction when S-9 is world famous and get all sorts of awards.

[Al Garay]

I wish the Southern California demo session had produced more reviews, had a better response to stir more excitement. Instead the few comments seemed to focus on the bloated bass. Perhaps one of your dealers will show the Nuforce products at RMAF 2006.

I am rooting for your efforts to pay off.

[ooheadsoo]

The bass was what was wrong with the demo.  I know that Bob's speakers measure flat, it's a big priority for them, and the bass was pretty much the only flaw there was that you would really pick at, and it wasn't even the speakers' fault.  The speakers sounded really nice, large banks or swathes of sound when called for, like with xylophones, which sounded similar to how they ought, hearing the diffuse ringing of the bells, and not just the striking of the mallets on the wood blocks, and pinpoint when called for, such as with cymbals and brighter instruments.  I'm a complainer, privately and in the safe anonymity of online forums, and in this case, there was just nothing much to complain about except for the room's bass.  They were very detailed, and in the words of someone else, holographic.  Again, to me, my mind couldn't associate the sound with the speakers because the projection of the sound was so large, that it couldn't have been coming from the speakers.  With some light jazz trio work playing, listening from outside the auditorium, I could easily imagine a real trio playing inside.

Actually, one of the things that pleased me was how close the SP Tech AV-2 speaker kit I bought and assembled got me to the sound of the S-9.  The S-9 did many things better.  Despite the AV-2 kit's 8" driver MTM arrays, and a much much larger visual presence, the S-9 played (much much how many times can I say much?) louder effortlessly and presented things with much larger images (not lacking in specificity or precision, but with a larger presence, closer to real life.)  Imaging was more detached from the speakers than the AV-2.  It's hard to compare though because of the very different natures of the two listening environments and the fact that there was not one recording I was able to listen to on both systems.  Nevertheless, the AV-2 kit got me very very close for a fraction of the cost.  Bob, I just hope you're still in business by the time your finished products can fit in my budget.  These speakers deserve a good listen with recordings you are very familiar with - hopefully the RMAF room will be treated for bass.  It may be interesting to note that although my own system is reinforced with a subwoofer that roughly -3db@20hz, very little music actually reaches that range, probably nothing that we listened to came closer than 41hz or so for the low E on a 4 string electric bass.  Nevertheless, what bass there was had a much stronger presence, force, and impact in the S-9 demo.  Some of the weakness of the bass in my system I attribute to my own room, which is not great, either, but that doesn't detract from the very dynamic bass in the S-9 demo (despite the room induced bloat and ring.)  I would be more than happy to own the S-9 and experiment with bass traps and/or EQ in the demo room, if the room were mine.

[Aether Audio]

Jason,

I think Bob should be going back to work on minimum wage building S-9 instead of reading AC and posting long (but nice) article to defend us.

...Fear not - I wrote that while I was having my morning coffee at home - as I am now.   Please don't write me up.  I'm not screwing around on company time - honest!

As far as the bass of the S-9 during the LA demo goes...I think there were two issues at work.

First, the walls of the room looked like they were some kind of hard "melamine" coated hardboard material.  It looked like they were made to be move-able, like some kind of room divider.  Before the room started filling with people you could actually hear a "slap" echo coming from them.

Second, we had the speakers too close to the side walls and tucked too far into the end of the room.  I think that ended up placing them in an area that reinforced major room resonant modes.  You could hear some notes just boom and ring on forever while other notes (all in the bass) hardly seemed audible in comparison.  That was due to anti-phase nulls or suck-outs in the frequency response.  I think if we would have had time to experiment (which we didn't - they just got plopped in place and never moved again), I think moving them in and toward the center of the room by no more than a foot or two would have made a huge difference.

To be honest, as much as everybody engaged in conversation, I'm surprised anybody had a chance to hear much of anything at all.  Thanks for the write-up though Abe, I could tell you were really trying to listen.  And it was great finally getting to meet you too.  Thanks for the vote!

-Bob

PS.  It's those woofers in the AV speakers that limit everything.  That's why I use the aluminum when I can.  They have tons more excursion capability and far lower distortion.  The only drawback is their lower sensitivity.  But if you got the juice...

[rustydoglim]

We'll have feedback from people soon.  Next week, 3 speakers are going to Sweden (they wanted 5), 2 to Denmark and 2 to A&E TV Network. By end of Septerber S-9 will be all over world with some in the US.
We'll also start the magazine reviews in September.

[ndeslions]

Nothing for France ?

[rustydoglim]

France has been scheduled for mid September production.  It is on the priority list. We might be able to ship by end of 1st week of Sept.

[gypsums]

do not forget the uk

[rustydoglim]

This image just came in from The Netherlands. There will be more show photo. Well, according to our distributor, many people (including distributors of competing products) came to the room and commented that it has the best sound in the show.

S-9's Innovations

The Enclosure
It is constructed with 23 layers of Baltic-Birch plywood, assembled in a “stacked” configuration.  Each layer represents both the external and internal profile of the enclosure.  Each layer is precision cut by a CNC routing/boring center and then glued together.  The combination of using the material on its “end-grain” along with the large amount of adhesives required, results in an extremely rigid enclosure.  Special internal chambers utilized to reduce internal acoustic standing waves, double in their duty by providing added structural cross bracing.  The combination results in an extremely rigid construction of moderately low weight (i.e., less mass), which shifts the potential for enclosure-born vibrations to higher frequencies.  The effect is to push these unwanted resonances out of the woofer “pass-band” and thereby minimizes the likelihood that the back-energy of the woofer will ever excite them into resonant vibration.

Read about other innovations to eliminate various form of distortions such as excess tweeter diaphragm excursion, diffraction artifacts, time Domain distortion, sound dispersion, dynamic compression, and micro-phonic distortion to achieve a near perfect speaker.
http://www.nuforce.com/speaker-technology.htm

We'll be at CES 2007 and hear for yourself 
NuForce amps + S-9 is as close to live performance as it gets.