I’ve been listing to my upgraded Ref. 9 SE’s for two months and the improvement is astounding over Ref 9b.s. The Ref. 9b’s are fine amps, but the SE’s are one of the best amps I’ve ever heard. The soundstage is so large it is almost as if every CD is recorded in Q sound. The bass and midrange is warmer, fuller and deeper, easily powering my VMPS RM40’s. Prior to the upgrade I had settled on bi-amping my speakers, using a Cinenova 3 for the woofers and the Ref. 9B’s for the ribbon midranges and tweeters. With just the SE’s I have all the bass of bi-amping, but with a more natural and seamless sound in the midrange that produces surreal imaging and soundstage.
The SE upgrade took about 70 hours to break in, just as the Ref. 9b initially did, but out of the box, the SE’s sounded every bit as good as the broken-in 9b’s and only got better as the soundstage kept getting larger during break-in and the bass got tighter and deeper. I have a SlimDevices Transporter, so I jump from song to song all the time. I’m amazed how well these amps handle a wide variety of music from rock to acoustic and everything sounds great.
The turn around time for the upgrade was excellent with Nuforce receiving and shipping them out within two days. The 9b’s are good amps, but the SE’s are worth raving about and definitely worth the upgrade in my system, thus the reason for my first post in the Nuforce Circle.
Corbin
