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The courting games
While waiting for the NuForce S-1 speakers to arrive, I lost no time keeping the Icons busy. Srajan first started by butchering the Icon with his Mark & Daniel Ruby in a simulated desktop setup. It seemed logical that I pick up from there with my avid collection of 5½ pairs of M&D speakers, Ruby included. However, I refrained from feeding the little Icons to any of the current-gobbling killers. That left me with the newer generation of Sapphire, Topaz and Maximus Mini. I have been using the Winsome Labs Mouse quatro drive on my Sapphire/Topaz 5-channel system (the three front channels are biamped). I knew for sure that the 12wpc Icons would be outmatched. My partnering speaker would be the Maximus Mini I thought. With an impedance roaming between 4 to 8 ohms, it is the smallest and most forgiving of the stable. It's biwirable so bi-amping with two Icons seemed safe. Still, that proved to be a bad match. Even with uncomplicated chamber music like Beethoven's Ghost Piano Trio [EMI 5188332], the sound broke up during double forte passages. I could hear that from the air-motion transformers. When I shared this with Jason, he said that "...the Icon is current-limited so 4-ohm is not recommended because you'll get into protection mode very easily (just do a power reset if that happens)." The NuForce IC is more tolerant than Tripath however which happened to fry on the Maximus-Mini despite its built-in protection circuit. As for the "higher background noise" of the NuForce, I wouldn't have noticed if not alerted.

My next move was to turn to high-efficiency speakers. My Klipsch F2 has always elicited a wide spacious sound from my Dared 2A3C and Synthesis The Dream amps even when spaced apart over 10 feet; a perfect testing ground for the Icon's soundstaging chops, width in particular. The Icon soon proved to be wrong in this context. Instrument placement was shifting and imaging was indecisive with Trio Campenella's interpretation of Albeniz's celebrated Iberia on three guitars [Naxos 8.557064], which should have been an easy demo job but I could hardly pin down the central guitar. I cut it down to two instruments. The Jones & Maruri cello-guitar duo's "Don Quijote y Dulcinea" [EMEC E-063] used to be my favorite piece for impressing friends with musical involvement, stunning tonal richness and imaging. Here it became very airy but of insufficient mass. And the two instruments became physically separated and musically detached. Hollowing out the middle gave the wrong impression of lacking interaction. Even a solo piano remained unfocused, its image seemingly splitting up or sprinkled around in the middle and again hollowed out. The F2 complements tube amps and the KingRex with very warm timbres and tonal nuance but was too soft over the Icons. I suspected that the F2's front-firing ports, while enhancing valve bloom and augmenting the low end, also were the culprit of transient-blurring group delay when they failed to gel with the NuForce amplifiers. Too much decay, not enough attack.


I didn't think the source gear was too soft (Micromega MicroDrive plus Deltec Little Bit DAC). Every finger kept pointing at the speakers. I needed a pair of 'leaner and meaner' jobs, a lightweight 8-ohm two-way mini bookshelf. Placing the biwirable Micron on sand-filled JMlab stands closing in 8 feet apart, the Icons gave me focus and depth, reasonable clarity and tonal balance. Although still verging on the light side, the Micron managed to improve in density and presence. Of course I would not have minded a pair of subwoofers, which were duly connected to the Icons' line-out sockets. That addressed the dynamic issue quite satisfactorily. The Micron is well defined and perhaps a shade too bright with some transistor amps but perfect for the soft-spoken Icon.


Motivated by first success, I went on to exhaust other speaker options that might enhance the Icon's performance. The first step was bringing in a preamp. Since I had the Micromega Variodac already in position, a quick probing was imminent. Nope, didn't work - too mellow, clouded details. Then I called upon my favorite low-budget high-performance tube preamp, the Dared MC-7P. As made evident by Hans Rott's Sinfonie for String Orchestra [Acousence ACO-CD20205], the sumptuous string textures flowed with an affluence of body and warmth. The fortissimo carried a prominent presence of substance and velvety density, yet somehow layering was not as well articulated.


It came time to factor in a third element - speaker cables. To enable connections, I prepared two types of DIY adaptors, RJ45 to OCOS and RJ45 to binding posts following NuForce's instruction and leaving the two outer RJ45 conductors empty - they are reserved for the EQ network that works only with the S-1 speakers. Of all the cables my arsenal permitted, the two most promising were OCOS and Symphonic Line 'The Fast'. They seemed to strike a fine balance between maintaining the fluidity and organic feeling of vacuum tubes while embossing the imaging without hard edges. Setting both Icons to 3:30 on the volume instead of maximum gave best resolution without grainy distortion. I challenged them with complicated orchestration like Mahler's Titan Symphony [Acousence ACO-CD 20305] and the Dared/Icon/OCOS/JMlab synergy held up with ease. My earlier concern over layering was pleasantly resolved. With the paired Quest subwoofers added to the formula, the sonic quality had nothing to apologize for in this price range.


After about 8 weeks of listening, I felt quite confident to hand out a mid-term report card. Despite its name, the Icon is faceless and colorless, lacking a personality. While not necessarily bad, this is different from being neutral. The Trends TA10 is neutral and clean cut. The KingRex T20/T20U is more organic and decidedly warmer. The Icon is like a bare raw palette without any colors, not even varnish. It has an undefined personality and needs a pair of speakers with a sharply characterized sonic profile to lift it up and bring it to life. A lot of affordable 8-ohm two-way bookshelf jobs will fall in line as worthy contenders like the Usher S520, which is extremely revealing and slightly bright.


Prearranged marriage
Then another prince or better, arranged fiancé knocked on my door. The NuForce S-1 arrived. Undoubtedly the most handsome of them all, this life-style desktop speaker is designed to coordinate with the Icon. The round corners and silver/blue version I received found accord with the simple lines of my Mac Mini. With our publisher's well-penned review and NuForce's dedicated website full of information plus a forum, it's a crime to reiterate anything here. But let me quickly pull out a few bullets pertinent to what follows.