Free digital audio test tracks from Nuforce

These uncompressed WAV/FLAC/WMA/Apple Lossless format tracks may be freely download and distributed in its entirety only with attribution to Nuforce. The album art file must be included with the distribution.


Track list

1. Drum Dynamics, 4608 Kbps / 96KHz.
   
   This track demonstrates a largely misunderstood term: dynamics. Any boombox can play loud. A good stereo’s dynamics range from feather-soft to thunder-clap loud. The metal and drums (skins and rims) reveal a system’s ability to convey lightning-swift transients.
2. Cello Tonality, 4608 Kbps / 96KHz.
   
   Good stereo allows you to appreciate this 300-year-old cello’s unique timbre and rich resonance.
3. Piano Tonality, 4608 Kbps / 96KHz
   
   This intimate yet remarkably powerful recording is especially revealing of the Fazioli piano’s percussive attacks, overtones and decays, and most especially, of its soul-stirring middle and lower range.
4. Jazz Plucked Bass, 4608 Kbps / 96KHz
5. Classical Plucked Bass, 4608 Kbps / 96KHz
   
   Apart from both instruments’ rich fundamentals and warm overtones, can you detect differences with respect to their individual character?
6. Vocal Tonality, 4608 Kbps / 96KHz
   
   Her sibilants should have a natural rather than “spitty” character. You should also have a sense of the singer’s physical body – lips, tongue, throat, lungs and chest. The human voice via good stereo can be very seductive.
7. Asian Flute, 4608 Kbps / 96KHz
   
   A brilliant yet distant, soulful and spacious sound, the result perhaps of applied reverberation?
8. Binaural Tonality, 4608 Kbps / 96KHz
   
   You should experience a strong sense of left-right separation in an intimate setting yet with no sense of a hole in the middle of the soundstage.
9. Complex Tonal Resolution, 4608 Kbps / 96KHz
   
   In contrast to the above, the flute and guitar appear to occupy the space between the speakers in yet another intimate setting.
10. Outdoor Ambience, 4608 Kbps / 96KHz
    
    Does the band seem to be playing in an acoustically ideal space? – a well designed performance shell perhaps? Pay particular attention to location within the soundfield.
11. Outdoor spaciousness, 4608 Kbps / 96KHz
    
    Have you a sense of the trumpets’ knife-edged brilliance playing into the open air?
12. Harmonic Group Unity, 4608 Kbps / 96KHz
    
    Here we have an excellent example of a fully occupied, harmonically luxuriant soundfield. Our table in this jazz club isn’t very far from the band.
13. Tonal Delicacy, 4608 Kbps / 96KHz
    
    Note the swift attacks and the harmonics they produce. Our proximity to the guitarist permits us to hear this beautiful instrument’s every intricate aspect.
14. Complex Tonal Purity, 4608 Kbps / 96KHz
    
    Do you hear this performance as entirely natural or artificially enhanced? You should be getting better at this.
15. Ensemble Power, 4608 Kbps / 96KHz
    
    A hard-driving performance you can almost feel in your chest. Does the band seem to be indoors or outdoors?
16. Exotic Percussion, 4608 Kbps / 96KHz
    
    A perfect demonstration of sharp attacks, rich overtones, authoritative bass, and long, elegant fades into space.

Nuforce DAC-9 launched

Sneak previewed in our earlier post, the Nuforce Dac-9 has been launched.  The DAC-9's six digital inputs offer compatibility with all existing digital sources. Thanks to its defeatable volume control, the DAC-9 can be used without a preamp as a purely digital device (when switched to Fixed Output, the volume control circuit steps aside in order to provide a simpler, cleaner signal path.) 

An innovative output filter and minimalist analog output stage that requires no negative feedback permit the DAC-9 to preserve phase coherency and musical subtleties while simultaneously maintaining an excellent transient capability. The absence in the signal path of an oversampling filter and sample-rate conversion circuit further contribute to the DAC9's excellent performance characteristics. In addition, a toroidal transformer with multiple stages of voltage regulation provides tight, low-impedance power and should be able to drive any power amplifier directly.

The DAC-9's USB input supports 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96kHz 176.4, and 192kHz (Editor: correction. 192kHz option will be provided at a later date) from PCs and MACs.

For added convenience, the DAC9 includes a high-performance headphone output with independent volume control.

• 6 inputs: USB, AES/EBU, RCA/BNC, RCA, toslink via 3.5mm mini Toslink optical
• Outputs: Balanced XLR, un balanced RCA, 3.5mm and 6.3mm headphone output, the headphone output and optical input share the 3.5mm optical Input
• Two ESS 9018 DAC chips working in current mode
• Touch panel control
• Digitally controlled defeatable analog volume
• Remote control: volume, input select, dim, mute
• Volume and sample rate display
• List price US$1,695 

(April 13th 2011) More details on the DAC-9

• Plug-in USB module/interfaces provide for upgradeability to higher bit rates
• Minimal processing and the shortest possible signal paths
• A pair of high-performance, non-over-sampling DACs offer up to 24-bit/192kHz (24bit/96kHz for USB) conversion of digital audio data. Extensive testing and listening tell us that up-sampling and sample-rate conversion do more harm than good, as does negative feedback. Consequently, no form of sample-rate conversion is ever employed. (Doesn't sound like 9018 to me??)
• Summing the output of two DACs increases the signal-to-noise ratio to near-theoretical limits
• An innovative Passive IV Digital Output Filter assures lifelike musical reproduction. The DAC-9’s passive circuit employs no negative feedback of any kind, thus providing a ripple-free response wherein high-frequency phase coherence is always maintained.
• The converted signal passes on to the analog preamplifier stage, which also adheres minimalist design principles
• Shunt-regulated linear power supply provides. With its multiple regulation stages, the power supply allows the DAC-9’s digital and analog circuits to operate to their fullest potential

Nuforce Podio active speakers

Nuforce's Podio PS-106 is a powered mono speaker featuring one-piece aluminum body, immaculately machined and anodized. The PS-106 is a stylish companion to your iPod/iPad/iPhone or any MP3 player. 

Ultilizing high quality Foster HiFi speaker driver, the PS-106 produces quality sound much bigger than their $59 price tag.  It is a mono speaker but with stereo mixer output and internal long-life rechargeable Li-ion battery.

Nuforce Icon2 DAC+Integrated Amplifier

The NuForce Icon2 improved upon the original Icom and is now rated at 24-watts per channel driven into 4Ω (18-watts per channel when driving 8Ω loudspeakers) and has a high-performance DAC built in. It has stereo RCA inputs and a 3.5mm headphone output on the front panel.

iMac, Nuforce Icon2, and Amphion ion 

The USB DAC inside the Icon2 is compatible with both USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 standards, able to operate at 32, 44.1, 48, and 96 kHz up to 24-bit (no 88.2!). The 3.5mm stereo headphone jack on the front panel can deliver 80mW into 16Ω headphones. There is also two more analog inputs one via normal RCA, another via 3.5mm mini jack.  It’s available in four different brushed aluminium finishes: Black, Silver, Red or Blue, for US$349. 

In a fairly unusual move, NuForce has terminated the speaker terminals of the Icon2 with RJ45 connectors, so it also provides a pair of two-metre long RJ45-to-banana-plug speaker cables with each amplifier, these can be extended using CAT5 ethernet couplers.

Nuforce DAC-9

Soon to be released Nuforce DAC-9, preliminary specs:

• BNC coaxial digital input
• AES/EBU coaxial digital input
• USB input
• Toslink digital input
• XLR analog outputs
• 1 x fixed and 1 x variable RCA analog outputs
• Discrete headphone outputs
• Digital volume control
• Remote

More details soon... (here)

Nuforce offers Oppo BDP-93 and BDP-95 upgrades

OPPO BDP-93 NuForce Edition MSRP $899 (available Feb, 2011)
OPPO BDP-93 NuForce Xtreme Edition MSRP $1299 (available April, 2011)
OPPO BDP-95 NuForce Xtreme Edition MSRP $2495 (available April, 2011)

Extracting high-quality audio from Blu-ray players is problematic. The HDMI signal interleaves video and audio data which, upon decoding, produces an inherent jitter as high as 7nanoseconds (For comparison, a good CD player's jitter is in the picosecond range). In practical terms, it is difficult to properly decode HDMI audio without employing extensive reclocking circuits, thus pushing up the cost of a good HDMI audio pre-processor.

The simplest way to improve analog audio performance is at the source. As replacements for standard OPPO analog boards, the NuForce analog boards for the Oppo BDP-93 and BDP-95 3D Blu-ray players have been redesigned from the ground up for improved performance parameters. DIY customers can purchase NuForce Edition analog boards separately to upgrade to NuForce Edition BDP-93NE, BDP-93NXE and BDP95NXE players.

BDP-93 NuForce Edition player (MSRP $899) and 93NE board (MSRP $400) feature:

• All 8-channels have been re-engineered for a breathtaking, full-HD multi-channel experience
• A highly regulated and filtered onboard linear power supply
• Output stage carefully designed to sidestep signal-degrading muting circuitry
• Advanced analog filters eliminate phase shifting within the audible bands
• High performance op-amps for a warm, vibrant, seductive sound

BDP-93 NuForce Extreme Edition (MSRP $1299) and 93NXE (MSRP $800) upgrade board offer all the features of BDP-93NE plus:

A sophisticated clocking scheme to suppress the audio data jitters – inherent in all video-based players – for all eight channels. An ultra stable VCXO generates audio clock that is completely asynchronous from the transport's clock. Thee result is a theoretical jitter of < 3ps (RMS) on both PCM and DSD streams.

The BDP-95 NuForce Extreme Edition (NXE) (MSRP $2495):

• Employs the BDP-95 platform plus a state-of-the art Sabre32 DAC, thus raising performance to an even higher level.
• Two-channel ultra-high-performance output for music
• 7.1-channel ultra-high-performance output for movies
• All channels utilize extensive re-clocking circuits
• A more robust power supply with multiple regulation

Nuforce is accepting orders January 15, 2011