Received my P-9 over the weekend, as the second of two upgrades for my system. First was the 9.02 to 9 SE's, which was outstanding. See my other post on that subject. I wish I had as much success with the P-9. So far I've made the following observations:
1. After correctly connecting and powering up the P-9, it initializes, then hangs with a message on the Control display saying: "Load Settings" - it took 30 minutes of guess work to realize that not only must a source be connected to the P-9, but it has to be powered up in order for the P-9 to complete it's boot up. Odd. No documentation about this in the manual. There should be something on this, unless my unit is faulty, and this is incorrect behavior for the unit.
2. The volume control. Brilliant idea separating POTS from the signal path, not so good execution, not so good user interface. The ALPS potentiometer in the analog section is totally out of sync with the digital step volume controlled on the remote and the Control unit's digital dial. Step 1 is too lound, and steps 2-10 are huge leaps in volume/decibel. At 12'oclock on the ALPS dial, the digital read out shows just 13/100, and the sound output is much louder than 13% of volume. Its not linear. As you go from 12 to 9 oclock on the ALPS the digital steps are much smaller. I can't get the volume where I want it at lower volumes because the steps are too big in between. Only way is to get up and adjust the ALPS dial by hand every time.
3. The remote control. Very cool looking. Think light saber from star wars. However it is buggy. Sends a murky signal to the control unit that gets the display oscillating back and forth from volume levels. For example, its easy to get the system to flicker back and forth from Volume level 1 and 2. Erratic behavior for a $3k pre amp.
4. Volume 0. When using the remote to trigger the alps motor to drive the volume down to 0, the pre-amp lets out a nice static-buzzing sound in the left channel EVERY time, when it motors from any volume down to 0.
5. Perhaps most elusive was a soft but noticeable (read: annoying) buzzing sound coming from the left speaker. After about 3-4 hours debugging this last night...uggh, thinking it was power or interference related, it turns out to be P-9 pre-amp related. I simply switched my XLR outputs to the amps, putting right channel to left and left to right. Surprise, the buzzing jumped over to the right speaker (when plugged into the P-9's left XLR output), at idle, when the pre-amp is on, but no music playing. I thought it was perhaps power coming to the P-9, so I used a variety of clean circuits and wall sockets, to no avail. I even put my P-8 back in to listen for any buzzing. dead quiet with the P-8 and 9 SE's.
6. LCD display. A personal preference here, but I was surprised that Nuforce went with a backlit display versus using white LEDs on the black screen like the gorgeous display used on the squeezebox, which i don't even own, but have seen at a friend's place. In a bright sunlit room it is very hard to read the Nuforce display from a distance, and its display is not very high resolution pixels, and the contrast is not optimal. The fonts of the text on display look a bit old school. I would have thought these details would be as polished as the pre-amp system design itself.
What happens when you combine the issue in 6 above with item 2 above, you get stuck in a volume guessing game:
When turning down the volume with the remote, you can't tell what setting it is on so a natural reaction is to watch the ALPS dial move. However the digital volume values move much faster than the ALPS motor, so I've found myself lowering voluming too far, or to zero, then back up too high, then back down, largely due to the huge steps in the lower 0-13 volume values on the display.
Now all of this really got in the way of some serious music listening. Today I spent the morning confirming my debugging efforts and then listened to some great tunes. Initial impressions on pure audio are impressive, and the unit really is most revealing. That is the best word to use to describe the P-9. It really gets out of the way of the music, which I believe achieves the objective Nuforce was aiming for. I am sure it will get even better with more than an hour or two of demo'ing that I've done thus far. Unfortunately, I am not sure I am going to keep the P-9 in my system, due to these problems that plague me above. It's too early to call it, let's see how Nuforce addresses these issues. If I don't keep it, I'll likely revert back to my trusty P-8, for the time being.
In summary, the P-9 performing pretty darn well out of the box, but feels like a "beta" product to me. Many little details must be worked out, as the rest of the players in this price level and performance level won't skimp in these areas at all, such as controls, interface, usability, and of course performance. The ModWright team comes to mind in terms of product quality, and as a formidable alternative, despite its very different (tube) offering in their SWLP 9.0SE. Also, the underdog - CIAudio PLC-1 passive line controller comes to mind as a solid, and well executed product in this arena at a very competitive price.
I'm a big Nuforce fan, and am hopeful/optimistic that these items will be resolved for a product at this level. Nuforce is a very responsive company. Stay tuned!
