[srb]

Nuforce and any other manufacturer can disclose as much or as little as they want.

That's what I said.
 

If you don't like it you can shop elsewhere. ... Again, if you don't like it, go somewhere else.  No one is making you buy anything.

That was my point.
 

To get upset at the way they decide to do business seems infantile and selfish.
Not intended to be a rant but I get upset...

Except that I'm not upset, but apparently you are.  Sorry.
 
Steve

[Charles Calkins]

Steve:
 Thanks for helping this dumdum. I found it.

                            Cheers
                           Charlie

[Aether Audio]

Crunkle,

The condescension is astounding.  Aether Audio's response demonstrates an off-putting lack of respect for the intelligence of nuforce's (and his own) potential customers.

No condescension implied whatsoever.

Nevertheless, there was a time many years ago when this was not so true, and in those days, I was like many of you.  I wanted to know as much as I could about a product as part of the process in making a purchase decision.  Rest assured, there is no "right or wrong" in this regard and to each his own.

Notice the "there is no 'right or wrong' in this regard and to each his own" comment above?  Certainly there will be the occasional consumer that is also technically trained and sufficiently qualified  to succinctly and adequately critique a given design.  Then again, most of them will have already been working in the audio field themselves… and most would understand our reasoning as a result – especially if they design products themselves.  While they may not necessarily adopt the same policy for their own products, nevertheless they would understand ours.

Given the nature of this hobby though, what do you suppose their percentages are? We're talking consumers and consumer products here, not SOTA scientific test equipment being used in R&D and critiqued by PhDs before purchase.  Even then you can bet Tektronix, Agilent, HP and their ilk aren't disclosing all of their secrets either – and for many of the same reasons.

But hey- I'm just bitter because I liked the sexy little black metal Icon boxes so much and they were so cheap that I was totally willing to believe that I was getting an "audiophile-grade" product.

And based on a "lack" of technical information you assume now that you wouldn't be?  I think most would agree that the "telling" information comes from experience with the product, not technical details.  How many times have we heard in this hobby that "spec's don't matter" and that the resulting sound is all folks care about? NuForce does their best to satisfy both groups within the limits of their own well thought out and established policies.

Considering their very accommodating product trial policies, reason would suggest a personal audition before coming to such a conclusion – unless one prefers to take intellectual issue with a company's policy and elevate the debate thereof to being more important than the ultimate performance of the product in question.

Following such logic, I see no opportunity for any company to form any policy, other than that of total capitulation to every request for information that comes along.  Anything short of that and surely somebody will be "put off" and/or take offense – where none was ever intended.  Ultimately, I guess some folks just want things "their way" and anything less is perceived as being the result of some nefarious intentions on the part of the company.  Obviously any effort to dissuade such thinking is doomed to failure on occasion, but in this case… at least we honestly tried.  We're sincerely sorry if you or any others have taken offense, but I suspect the policy will remain.

Best wishes,
-Bob

PS.  Thanks cliffy!!! 

[*Scotty*]

In small quantities the the best stereo ESS DAC was about $40. In as much as we are discussing a $449.00 product, you have to have realistic expectations of its performance and parts content. $449 is a very small budget to work with,it is much more likely to contain a DAC chipset that is in line with the available product build budget, this is the principle of TANSTAAFL at work. see link to Amazon for the ICON HDP.
http://www.amazon.com/NuForce-Icon-High-end-Headphone-Preamp/dp/B00370OIYE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1267827180&sr=8-1
I have no problem with their secretiveness,although another way to approach things is to view your designing abilities as an inexhaustible intellectual resource. That is to say that the best there is or the state of the art is a moving target and you can always build a much better sounding circuit than what you currently have in production. If someone is stupid enough to spend money to tool up and copy your design, then they will have effectively copied something that is already obsolete and that will be badly outperformed by your next design.  In this way you are operating like Felix the Cat,he only takes the trick out of his bag that he needs at the time and he always has another trick in reserve in his bag. If all a company can do is copy and never innovate then they are always playing catchup in the market place and never get ahead of the competition.
Scotty

TANSTAAFL  link  http://tinyurl.com/yjn3xmx

[cynan]

I'm sorry to say that I am at least somewhat inclined to agree with Crunkle about the condenscending tone of Aether Audio's posts (perhaps exacerbated by his status as Nuforce representative) - which is recapitulated in this post with lines such as:

Following such logic, I see no opportunity for any company to form any policy, other than that of total capitulation to every request for information that comes along.  Anything short of that and surely somebody will be "put off" and/or take offense – where none was ever intended...

Participants in this thread are simply interested in product specifications and, in particular, the identity of the DAC chip used in a produc which functions primarily as a, well, DAC. Perhaps Nuforce has good reasons not to disclose its identity (ie, agreement with DAC chip manufacturer as mentioned - rather than that it is using sub-par chips that the company feels may turn off some customers should their identify come to light). However, to insinuate or imply that asking about the identity of a DAC chip(s), in a DAC, is in the same vein as demanding a policy of full disclosure in response to any request or whim is absolutely ludicrous.

Taking the stance that potential customers asking questions can never all be completely satisfied and some may become disgruntled by the responses (or lack thereof), and that because we all want everything "our way" and that you can never please anyone despite your best efforts to the contrary, so why bother, etc... is a cop out. And a pretty lame stance to take on forum designed for manufacturers to interact with their customers.

If Nuforce can't disclose the identity of the DAC chip, then Nuforce should just state as such (as they did) and leave it at that. No need to tell or insinuate to others how unenlightened they are because they are not happy about it.

That said, I would love an opportunity to audition the Icon HDP. And as others here, am interested in the componentry incorporated in this device. At the top of this list, for a DAC, is the DAC chip itself.

[rustydoglim]

I think we have heard enough from well said and respectful opinions of all of you with different perspective.

Nuforce is a very niche and small company as you pointed out.  To disclose, we might caused confusion and lose some customers. Not disclose, we also might lose some customers. So ultimately, we have to decide what path we want to take. It is our conviction (lets not argue about this) that as long as we keep producing exceptional quality products that have better performance/price ratio over competitors, our brand will eventually stand for something.

Usually this type of questions are raised by new customers who are very technical.  One of you said that you will not buy if you don't know what DAC was used. Another one of you have concern that we might switch the DAC.  If we ended up losing some potential customers, so be it.
Before you walk away, consider what other customers are saying about our product quality (a casual search on Amazon.com will tell you that we made exceptional product), read the reviews.  This new review just published by Larry Gantz, who is a well respected member in the head-fi.org forum:
http://www.amazon.com/NuForce-Icon-High-end-Headphone-Preamp/product-reviews/B00370OIYE/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Please don't take my response as being arrogant. I hate to lose even one customer. But as I have said, we have to choose our marketing strategy and how we build our brand.  If you are serious about looking for a product like Icon HDP, in addition to the 30 day 100% money back guarantee, I will even refund your original shipping cost if you decided that Icon HDP doesn't meet your need.

What makes me feel so confident that we are on the right track? Customer's feedback. Nuforce have been growing year after year with not a single down year since 2005.  Our sales have been growing at rapidly accelerating rate in the past few months. More important than sales is the feedback that we frequently received from new customers. When we do something right, they tell us how they like our products and they are spreading the word for us. When we made a mistake they appreciate that we took care of problems. 

Someone will always question something we do, say or publish. Like everything else in life (politics, religion, relationship, whatever), there is no perfect answer.  What's important is our core value and principle: We have to be honest and treat customer right. Every chance we have, we state our mission statement clearly: Thrill The Ear, Delight The Eye, and Please The Pocket.

[rustydoglim]

I will mention some general philosophy and strategy about product development.

We can't simply value a product base just on the cost of the parts. Usually the (perceived) value of a product = build quality, performance compared to other products, affordability (within its target market),  subjective enjoyment, brand, etc

Having said that, we know the competition in the consumer electronics space is intense. Therefore we usually stick to a very low MSRP/cost ratio (as low as we possibly can) for all our products. The strategy is simple: do the best you can and leave no room for competitors.  This is against MBA marketing 101 where you are taught to maximize margin at the beginning and then reduce the price as competition becomes intense.

One of the most important objectives that I gave to our engineering for HDP was:
Make it the crown jewel of the Icon family. Do whatever you can to outperform everything else on the market at up to several times our target price (obviously we don't know everything on the market so my statement is to tell engineering to go all out for it and don't hold back).

Base on the expected volume of this type of product, our average gross margin is too low. We took a big risk of using top quality parts with a lower than usual margin with the hope that the market will recognize the value.

Icon HDP is a new product so there isn't much feedback yet. Lets look at uDAC. Before the product release, I was told that we could be pricing uDAC too low, given the performance and build quality. And after more than 1000 posts and 100,000 views on head-fi.org forum within 2 months, uDAC was unanimously praised and customers have compared it to just about anything within a few X of the price range of uDAC.  We couldn't predicted that but had a gut feeling that it would be the case 

The bottom line is that we just keep delivering good value for money products, never break the trust of customers and we will earn the loyalty of customers.