802d impressions, krell vs nuforce ref9

[sikoniko]

Well, I am moving into my new house and most of the place is still in boxes. I did hook up my sherwood and my brand new ref9's to my N802's out in the garage. The room is most likely an acoustical nightmare at the moment, but I will be enclosing it in the coming months/weeks and getting it finished. I was just going through withdrawals and wanting to start figuring out how the room will look.



Since I do not have an ideal situation to listen to the ref9's, I called my b&w dealer up and asked him if he had time today to a/b them. He said bring them on up. the competition is a krell fully balanced 700cx. We used the krell KCT as the preamp using the balanced cables, hookedup to a pair of b&w 802d's, bi-wired.



One thing to keep in mind is that the krell 700 is a $16k amp, and 700W.



We started off with the nuforce. My nuforce might have 3 hours of burn-in at this point, maybe 5 tops. He just picked up the first CD he could find. some mariah carey CD. never heard it before.



the nuforce sounded good, but kind of shrilly on the upper end, and there was definately a seperation between the lows and the highs. a lack of depth I guess.



We hooked up the krell and the speakers came alive. very good depth, very rich and full of body. the highs were precise and there was more coming from the speakers. it just sounded more natural.


Now, keep in mind that the nuforce is not fully broken in at this point, so i am assuming more will come out of it. also, the krell had almost twice the power. there was a definate difference in the quality between the nuforce and the krell.


now that does not mean the nuforce sounded bad though. I am hoping that some of the depth will come to life during break-in and the harshness will back off. since it is almost 1/7th the cost for the nuforce, I definately find value. It will be interesting to hear the difference the 1000w upgrade will make as well. The 802d's definately like power.

[gerardhn]

Hi sikoniko

i just posted similar thing on the topic ..
Amps to create "revelation" on 802D / 800D
Gerard

[Aussie Geoff]

Sikoniko,

It will be interesting to hear the difference the 1000w upgrade will make as well.

What 100W upgrade? Is this to the Ref 9s?

Geoff

[sikoniko]

I believe nuforce-jason said they will be releasing a 1000w sometime next year. I have also read that the ref9's are upgradeable. maybe I am assuming too much that one could be upgraded to the other.

[PewterTA]

From everything I've heard, the NuForce need about 20 - 30 hours to really smooth out and open up... something with the electronics in them getting to their proper (low) operating temperature.

I'd say put some more time on those Ref9s and then go back. I still don't think they are going to make that Krell....I mean it's two different leagues there...but if you find a compareable (price/power wise) amp, I think you'll be pretty impressed.

[Blazar]

There is also the question of room treatment... how well treated was the dealer's room you auditioned in? perhaps one amp sounds better in one scenario whereas another may sound better in a different room..?

Was this blind a/b testing?

[DrJRapp]

Blazar

You certainly do have nerves of steel....20K worth of speakers driven with $250 worth of amp. I have people trying to make me feel guilty for expecting to drive 802Ds with a $2500 Rotel 1077!

[RebelMan]

sikoniko, what pre/pro-amplifier did you use, in both cases? Was it your Sherwood/Newcastle P-965?

[sikoniko]

We used the krell KCT as the preamp using the balanced cables.

i believe the cd player was a krell showcase dvd player.

It is kind of interesting how different an amp can sound. When I got home, I knew I did not have diamonds for sure! But I did feel that the sound was less shrill on my system than at the shop.

I am using silver rca's from apature to connect my ref9's.

Dan

[JKalman]

Well, I am moving into my new house and most of the place is still in boxes. I did hook up my sherwood and my brand new ref9's to my N802's out in the garage. The room is most likely an acoustical nightmare at the moment, but I will be enclosing it in the coming months/weeks and getting it finished. I was just going through withdrawals and wanting to start figuring out how the room will look.



Since I do not have an ideal situation to listen to the ref9's, I called my b&w dealer up and asked him if he had time today to a/b them. He said bring them on up. the competition is a krell fully balanced 700cx. We used the krell KCT as the preamp using the balanced cables, hookedup to a pair of b&w 802d's, bi-wired.



One thing to keep in mind is that the krell 700 is a $16k amp, and 700W.



We started off with the nuforce. My nuforce might have 3 hours of burn-in at this point, maybe 5 tops. He just picked up the first CD he could find. some mariah carey CD. never heard it before.



the nuforce sounded good, but kind of shrilly on the upper end, and there was definately a seperation between the lows and the highs. a lack of depth I guess.



We hooked up the krell and the speakers came alive. very good depth, very rich and full of body. the highs were precise and there was more coming from the speakers. it just sounded more natural.


Now, keep in mind that the nuforce is not fully broken in at this point, so i am assuming more will come out of it. also, the krell had almost twice the power. there was a definate difference in the quality between the nuforce and the krell.


now that does not mean the nuforce sounded bad though. I am hoping that some of the depth will come to life during break-in and the harshness will back off. since it is almost 1/7th the cost for the nuforce, I definately find value. It will be interesting to hear the difference the 1000w upgrade will make as well. The 802d's definately like power.

If you can afford to buy that Krell, God bless you and don't hesitate. You can't go wrong with that amp. I wish I could spend 16k more on more stereo equipment right now...

[sikoniko]

actually, i cant afford it and would not buy it even if i could. I have my limits on how much I will spend on any one item and it is far below that much. i merely wanted to demo my new amps against the best thing he had.

[audioqueso]

One thing I don't understand is this. The Nuforce is a digital amp. I haven't seen the blue prints of how it's built, but I would assume there should be very minimal analog processing since it's a 'digital amp', yes? So why would it really need a burn-in period?

[yfei]

One thing I don't understand is this. The Nuforce is a digital amp. I haven't seen the blue prints of how it's built, but I would assume there should be very minimal analog processing since it's a 'digital amp', yes? So why would it really need a burn-in period?

Well, it has been said that Nuforce is very different from all other 'digital' amplifiers like class-D, class-T. These 'digital' amps using a switching digital signal, however the Nuforce amp is based on switching analog signal. So I'd expect Nuforce has more analog circuit than other 'digital' amps.

And even for these digital switching amps, they should also have some analog parts, because they finally need a analog filter to convert the fast switching zig-zags into smooth analog wave forms.

I've used Nuforce ref 8b and ref 9 each for one month, with B&W N803. Nuforces are very excellent amps, they are analog sounding, high resolution, balanced, and holographic! since I can't simply using '3D' to describe it's soundstage.

[sikoniko]

the nuforces have had some burn in and are sounding better. after the first of the year I will take them up for a rematch!