Anyone using Nuforce Ref 9 Mono Blocks?

Ivor Tiefenbraun started this source first thing back when sources (turntables/arms/cartridges) differed wildly. The thinking persists even now, apparently, but is not so valid as it was in the bad old days.

If you have opaque speakers and amps, how are you going to judge the rest of the chain - or are you going to take a chance and buy something that "they" say is good and trust that when you finally get to the speakers and amp and can at last hear your front end you will like what you hear?

Taste does come in to this, so as I said yesterday how can you make meaningful judgements until you have a revealing back end (which, it bears repeating, includes the room)

Here are the specs of my Luxman amp:

Power output...200W x 2 (FTC, 8 Ohms, 0.03%
Freq Response...10Hz-100kHz
Signal to noise ratio...120dB
T.H.D...0.02%
Input Sensitivity/Impedance...1V/45kOhms
Rated I.M... no more than 0.02%

The amp is 16 yrs old. What will have the most dramatic affect on my system, a new amp or CDP?

That's what I thought. The problem is I can't listen to the Jolida at my local stereo shop.

Sure I can go and listen to the Arcam 73T and maybe take my CDP with for comparison but then the dealer has different speakers, interconnects and amplifier.

Man, it's tough.

Now that would be much easier!

The dramatic improvement you seek could easily be provided by the NuForce products. I love my NuForce amps and their transparent sound. They replaced a 3K tube amp in my system. NuForce customer support is also a dream come true.

There may be no reason you have to wait to solve your CD playing solution:

Many of us are using the Squeezebox 3 from slimdevices instead of a CD player. It hooks up to the stereo and plays your CDs but with the help of a home computer (which I am assuming you already own). This $300 plug and play solution has a very readable display (volume is remote controled, of course) and it also has built in wireless and talks to my computer in the next room, where my entire CD collection now resides on a hard drive. Great sound, no wires, instant access to my entire library. This is the future, and it works!

No more CD's and those crappy jewel cases, hooray. To top it off, the sqeezebox sounds better than my fancy tube CD player which cost over 4x as much!

For the music,

So you think an amp will make more of a dramatic difference then?

Yes. Tvad is wrong. :-)

I past the mizzen mast, that was the easy part.

Now, I just got to figure out how to get those drapes down.

Please do something. I'm begging you. Please.

The suspense is killing me.

:-)

You've probably already read this but just in case. http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue26/nuforce9se.htm

Personally, I think you should forget about the amp and player and get some different speakers. I doubt your hearing the full potential of your current amp and player. Correct me if I'm wrong, anybody. Wasn't the design goal of many dynamic speaker designers in those days to integrate the sound of multiple drivers. Since crossover technology was just beginning to be refined and very expensive, they simply moved the drivers closer and closer together? KEF sort of won the battle by developing a coaxial single driver UniQ system? With the tweeter buried in the woofer cone the system is very directional hampering imaging and the soundstageing. Not to be confused with some modern horn loaded highly sensitive single driver systems you see today being driven by SET's, KEF's Uni Q driver loaded in their Coupled Cavity produces a 92db 4ohm load. Excellent bass, for those day's, that falls of rapidly after 50Hz.

My suggestion would be to look for some used Hales, Vandersteen, Avalon, or Thiel's. Even their smaller two ways would be such an improvement you would then be able to more fully hear the fruits of your component upgrades.

Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Man you're slow. Once I got the mizzen mast done it was all down hill plus, now beat this, the new drapes are up.

Okay, let me clear something up. The speaker sound very good and I've compared them to Focal Chorus 726S and Totem speaker as well as some other brands and mine still sound very good.

I just want a little more bass, not much just a little more. And I think I could do with a bit of refinement.

So where do you start? The amp and CDP are 16 yrs old. The CDP is a Luzman DZ-03, which uses tubes that can't be changed. Here is a link to one just like mine:

http://www.audioscope.net/product_info.php?products_id=809

Ocassionally, it will skip about 6 songs for some reason and when I compare it to my 10 year old Sony CDP-C345 it sounds only slightly better. They are very close in sound quality.

So with old CDs would there be much of a difference changing my CDP or should I just get the mono blocks instead?

I'm think that's the best thing to do, I can't lose.

Does this mean I should change the drapes again?

Do the drapes match the carpet?

No because I have laminate floors, which is affecting the sound of my speakers.