NuForce DDA-100 impressions so far

[wilro15]

I recently acquired a NuForce DDA-100 integrated amplifier. It is a direct digital amp (DDA) in a similar vein to the NAD D 7050 - but without all the other gubbins like Airplay and Bluetooth. It outputs 50W into 8 ohms and has 4 digital inputs.

It is connect to a Mac Mini via USB playing ALAC files from iTunes. Speakers are Kef Q500 with QED Silver Annivesary cables.

According to the manufacturer it requires 75 hours of burn in time, this has been verified by other people on various other hifi forums. So far I am about half way through the burn in time.

Impressions so far? Well its a mixed bag to be honest and the results seem to vary between recordings. For instance, I listened to Radiohead's The Bends album and it sound thin, two dimensional and flat. I even had to double check that it was an Apple Lossless and not MP3. So then I swapped to Chemical Brothers' Exit Planet Dust and it was a completely different story. The Chem's sound amazing - crisp clear treble, deep bass, big soundstage and lots of depth (sort of sounded more 3D than the 2D Radiohead).

Its a similar story elsewhere, one minute it sounds crap (Bjork's Debut) and then it sounds awesome (Sasha's Xpander). One minute I am considering returning it and the next I am hooked. I've not experienced this kind of difference before - usually if its sounds good then its good full stop.

So the jury is still out for me. :?

 

[ID.]

Interesting. Look forword to any further impressions as you spend more time with it.

Invariably, whatever kit I've owned sounds better with some albums than others. I can't say Debut sounds bad on any system I've owned, but it has a relatively low recording volume so I need to turn the volume up further to get a similar impact to newer albums which have progressively become louder and more compressed thanks to the loudness wars.

NuForce make some interesting kit. I've recently acquired their Icon HDP. I'll post a review once I've spent more than a few hours with it.

 

[wilro15]

I'm wondering if volume was actually the factor here. I have just had another listening session, playing a wide variety of music, and it was sounding pretty good! I revisited Debut just to see and sure enough it definitely sounded much better.

Its almost as if the NuForce just comes alive over a certain volume - or maybe it is the speakers. I don't know.

I'm going to give it a little more time and if I am not happy then I will send it back. Plan B is the NAD D 3020.

 

[wilro15]

The NuForce DDA-100 seems to be coming into it's own right now. It seems as though burn-in is real as the amplifier is definitely sounding better all the time.

When I listen to music now I can hear all the details of the instruments much more than before. On my old Arcam system, instruments on a complicated piece of music would sound muddled together. Now I can hear a greater separation between the sounds in a song, its just so much clearer. As an example, a snare drum sound now has more depth, you can hear the short reverb trail on it. Treble sounds (i.e. hi hats) are so crisp and precise.

I've reached that point which I LOVE where you have to sit and go through all your favourite albums again to hear them in a new way.

Happy with the NuForce DDA-100!

 

[rabarama]

Hi,

I just bought my DDA-100 and had a listening session just yesterday evening.

This is my very first impression of a not enough used equipment and a not enough studied situation. Only my very first facing with this product.

I have to say I'm not very impressed.

I was expecting large and deep soundstage, and a hiend quality amp. If I had to use a word to describe my listening impression is : empty.

Yes it's clean, and has very low zzz, but... it's not really convincing me...

I'm moving in many ways in this period and my ampli setup is the subject of my changes:

In the last month I had: a Solid State Machintosh MA6300, a Tubes Sonic Frontiers final, a Wadia Intuition Digital ampli, a Vintage Nikko ampli, and my old Rotel AV multichannel ampli.

It's a busy time

The rest of the chain was allways the same, an entry level Sony SACD and a Arcam rdac as source, a pair of B&W CM4 as speakers.

Not very high system but this is what I have

Well, I have to say that 2 pieces that impressed me most was the Sonic Frontiers and mostly the Wadia Intuition.

Well obviously, the wadia cost is 15 times the nuforce, not really comparable, but some reviews i read describe the nuforce as most impressive thing out there.

Turing in theme, first opening: the nuforce sound whit my chain very poorly in the low frequencies and extremely cold in high levels. Rotel has made me used to have strong bass, and to reach that feeling on the nuforce i have to raise volume at a level that hurt my ears with high freqs.

In middle range, first sensation is that everything sound correct but esile... poor, empty.

Also my Rotel (teorically worse in many ways) give me a more satisfying sound.

This doesn't want to be a bad review: dda 100 is wonderfully made, and i tested it not enough to decide, The product is brand new and surely has to "grow", and some hours of hi-volume listening I hope will improve sound. Probably B&W and their nautilus derived tweeters is not a good combination, probably something smoother and warmer is a good couple.

It's only my not very impressed and very bad written 2 cents in a world of very impressed people and hope that some one can find them useful.

I will post a real review after at least 50 hours of listening hoping to change my mind.

Tony

 

[ID.]

Hi,

I just bought my DDA-100 and had a listening session just yesterday evening.

This is my very first impression of a not enough used equipment and a not enough studied situation. Only my very first facing with this product.

I have to say I'm not very impressed.

I was expecting large and deep soundstage, and a hiend quality amp. If I had to use a word to describe my listening impression is : empty.

Yes it's clean, and has very low zzz, but... it's not really convincing me...

I'm moving in many ways in this period and my ampli setup is the subject of my changes:

In the last month I had: a Solid State Machintosh MA6300, a Tubes Sonic Frontiers final, a Wadia Intuition Digital ampli, a Vintage Nikko ampli, and my old Rotel AV multichannel ampli.

It's a busy time

The rest of the chain was allways the same, an entry level Sony SACD and a Arcam rdac as source, a pair of B&W CM4 as speakers.

Not very high system but this is what I have

Well, I have to say that 2 pieces that impressed me most was the Sonic Frontiers and mostly the Wadia Intuition.

Well obviously, the wadia cost is 15 times the nuforce, not really comparable, but some reviews i read describe the nuforce as most impressive thing out there.

Turing in theme, first opening: the nuforce sound whit my chain very poorly in the low frequencies and extremely cold in high levels. Rotel has made me used to have strong bass, and to reach that feeling on the nuforce i have to raise volume at a level that hurt my ears with high freqs.

In middle range, first sensation is that everything sound correct but esile... poor, empty.

Also my Rotel (teorically worse in many ways) give me a more satisfying sound.

This doesn't want to be a bad review: dda 100 is wonderfully made, and i tested it not enough to decide, The product is brand new and surely has to "grow", and some hours of hi-volume listening I hope will improve sound. Probably B&W and their nautilus derived tweeters is not a good combination, probably something smoother and warmer is a good couple.

It's only my not very impressed and very bad written 2 cents in a world of very impressed people and hope that some one can find them useful.

I will post a real review after at least 50 hours of listening hoping to change my mind.

Tony

I'm not sure that I've really experienced burn in with anything other than speakers.

From what I can tell, the NuForce house sound tends to be quite detailed and cold, but that is mainly going on reputation rather than experience.

Certainly when I was buying the Icon HDP the user reviews were all over the place (warm, bright, neutral, laid back, lively...), but because it was the first serious DAC/headphone amp for many of the users they raved about it.

 

[wilro15]

I can only add my own observations that the NuForce DDA-100 sounded better over time. I had it playing continuously for a week while I was out at work. The recommendation is 75+ hours of burn in time.

Whether burn-in is real or imagined I don't know. Someone from NuForce explained whats happening on another forum but it went over my head.

Maybe I just got used to the sound? Perhaps. During that first week of burn-in time I ummmed and ahhhhed quite a lot and considered sending it back several times.

I have to say that I really like it now. The sound is very neutral and clean as far as I can tell.

 

[wilro15]

Sorry, one other thing I noticed, again this is subjective - it sounds better when the volume level is at around 40 or more. This may be more of a synergy thing with my speakers, so your setup will likely be different.

 

[rabarama]

Another listening session, other 2 cents...

Yesterday about 4 hours with my little warrior and the other side of the cage the Wadia Intuition 01 (a friend of mine has this monster).

Source: flac streaming from a mac via USB

Speakers: 2 Souns Faber Venere 3.0

well, I have to say that I really changed my mind.

SF Speakers are much more a right couple for this little nuforce, they are warmer and with a smoother tweater than my B&W CM4.

Result is that hi freqs are strong but nicer than the knife i tested with my b&w, and the big dimension gave me also quite good bass.

Obviously it was a really bad day for my nuforce, the opponent is not something easy to compare to, but I have to say that my little box was not bad at all.

Power: enough for my need. I like listening at high volumes, and I find myself often to rise volume over 80 and in some low recordings also over 90, but well, nuforce doesn't seem to add distortion at maximum volumes, so, his 75 Watt has much to say, also compared to 250w of the Wadia.

My unkind thought: Probably knowing the limit in low freq power at high volume, crafty nuforce engineers have preferred to exit with a High Freq shifted scale also at low volume to reach a good linearity of sound rising volume. Probably a stronger bass at medium volume had created mor problems at amp session at higher volumes... but this is only a bad thought, and it's not a good thing near xmas

Scene: well, very very good! Large, deep, precise. Absolutley comparable with wadia's.

Sound: very fast ! We listen to Petrucciani piano solos, and his Steinway's chords was there. Key pression and insane michael's brutal force on some notes was incredibly well returned. Fantastic.

Also acoustic guitar in Eric Clapton unplugged was really there, metal cords and his shoe on the wood floor. The crisp drum plates in the background. Very good.

As my first impression, when you switch to the Wadia, the main difference is presence. Everything is exactly in the same place, with the same good 3d reconstruction, but everything seems to sound with a richer sound. It seems to me that nuforce attenuates some reverberation, and some long tails sound, and this make me listen with the dda to a more dry event.

It's early to make this first feeling a definitive point, but this is my impression: In next period I will listen to it very much, and compare with other equipment to study this case.

Worse part of the story in my taste: slim bass. Ok, music is somewhere else, bass is not the reacher part of reproduction, but listening bach "Toccata e Fuga" on a 250w Wadia is another story, Organ low freq are emotions, and nuforce tells you only a part of the whole story.

After some hours, there's another thing that made me try to bring home my friend's wadia instead my nuforce (a part from $7000 ): I like high volume listening, and with nuforce high freq, it's not an easy listening. After some hours my ears need some silence, or some warmer and reacher wadia sound.

Endind: We were absolutely impressed of how nuforce can be compared to the wadia intuition.

We listen to a hi level performance, obviusly inferior to one of the today masterpieces of digital amplification, but win was not in yesterday evening menu.

So, impressive object, incredible performance, not your best friend if your target are deep bass and very reach ensambles.

to be continued ...