Hot on the trail of the NuForce “gala” launch party @ the Holiday Inn last weekend, is Jim Grudzien’s review of the NuForce Reference 9.02 amplifiers over at PFO. Jim obviously liked what he heard, as he proclaimed:

"The neutrality of the NuForce 9.02s is excellent. They convey the message of the recording without adding any artificial artifacts. Their bass is exquisite—the stuff of legend. Their control and pitch definition are the best I've heard to date. My Dali Grands can do bass very well, but teamed up with the 9.02s, they reached new levels of satisfaction. The midband of the 9.02s, while not as warm and luscious as that of a tube amp, is as accurate as that of any amplifier I've heard for some time. That fact is, they faithfully replay the signal, for better or worse. One the many things I liked about the NuForce components is that they do not change the signal—it's all-natural here, no artificial ingredients."

I personally haven’t hear any of the NuForce amplifiers in my system, suffice is to say that they are obviously very popular. Yet, it also appears that people either love or hate them – my thoughts on this subject are that NuForce appears to be a company that continuously works mad overtime hours at updating their components on what appears to be almost daily basis. On one end that’s certainly a fantastic sign – “hey, look at us, we don’t sit on our laurels” – on the other hand the devil’s advocate in me says wait a second; if these amplifiers are indeed of “reference” quality then how is it possible that magically weeks / months later a sudden new version or “revision” with yet another moniker “special edition” appears?

If these guys were marketing wild and crazy computers, I’d fully understand. After all, new computer processors are launching typically within months of each other. But amplifier designs? Considering that designers such as Tim de Paravicini of E.A.R. fame keeps designs around for almost decades (with small updates every say 5 years or so, have a look at say the model 509 mono block’s which have now been in production close to 20+ years) without new or substantially changed models replacing existing ones, I have to wonder if some of the persistent updates at NuForce aren’t perhaps clever exercises in marketing. Don’t misunderstand, there is nothing wrong with this method, per say. I just wonder what the fuss is really all about.