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| Now comes the obligatory part where the reviewer says, "of course the Judas amp by JC Inc. isn't perfect" to rattle off a short or long list of personal or universal ills. The question today is, what should the standards of perfection be for $249? Jason Lim was adamant. "Use your very best speakers." Okay. Best in my case is a matter of mood and ancillary electronics. The Rethm Saadhanas apply but their custom terminals wouldn't accept bananas. The Zu Definition Pros would apply but their Cardas blocks weren't ideal for 'nanas neither. Enter the DeVore Nines, a very resolved speakers despite what appear to be non-exotic drivers. The Nines can sound fantastic but for my tastes, want a small injection of body to overcome their inherent leanness of tone. |
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The DeVores confirmed a few suspicions the Rubies had already engendered. One, the Icon does bass completely beyond its size. Two, it's slightly warm and not at all clinically bleached, giving the very neutral Nines the small boost of 'tonality' I find they want. Three, the treble is unexpectedly smooth. The Icon still makes the NuForce fart on turn-on, a transient I personally could do without and which hi-effers will probably find outright obnoxious. But the Icon's price pretty much eliminates encounters of the 105dB kind. Over the Nines, it wasn't bad; over the Rubies, outright mild. Standard levels on the Nines had the attenuator sitting at exactly high noon. 2:00 shot up the neighborhood. |
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Rather than the persnickety micro-management type of soundstage sorting earlier class D to my ears was guilty of (a hyped, distinctly non-organic presentation of apparently awesome resolution lacking believability like a deep landscape photograph where the closest blade of grass and farthest tree are identically focused); rather than being solely focused on ultra-steep transient rise times with no follow up; the puny Icon sounded far more natural. I didn't find it preternaturally resolved, perhaps precisely because leading edges weren't oversharpened. |
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| Truth be told, on the DeVores, this $200 mini really hit the mother lode. My FirstWatt F4s are actually more transparent still, letting you feel deeper into | |||||||||||||||
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| the musical fabric, with longer decays and more harmonic sparkle on struck metallic objects. But on the Nines, they're leaner, making me wish for a collagen injection (which can be handled with a quality tube preamp). Here the Icon didn't need a preamp. While it didn't separate and articulate as sharply, the upshot was very pleasing and avoided bright and nasty and thin like the plague. |
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Where the li'l un is clearly limited is in dynamics. It plays plenty loud. Loudness per se is not the limiting factor. It's the oceanic scaling, that gathering of force which you sense with other -- of course far more expensive -- amps where the Icon lives up to its sticker and niggling wall wart. It can't deliver the pressurization. Nor does it dole out the whipper-snap flashes of violence the good of the bad boyz can. It doesn't have their explosive speed to peel out the little dynamic inflections in a singer's cadence as fully as bigger amps. Which really isn't a criticism, just a let's-get-real comment. The upshot is, it's this very lack of intense pressure coupled to the softer edging that makes the Icon far more pleasing than some laboratory dissection machines. Once we remind ourselves of the price - well hell, this softer, less intense, non scalpel-wielding, more relaxed and gentler voicing is perfect. And that bass growl and reach into the nether regions is simply off the charts impressive. I bet all this is just as deliberate as the fancy packaging fitting so snugly inside a FedEx carton. |
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Eyeing the puny +/-15V wall wart, it's likely the bottle neck which reins in dynamic reflexes. But guess what - your average thrice-priced affordable Chinese valve integrated will suffer the same as measured against big expensive amps with stout power supplies. And the Icon will bury the tuber on bass. No contest. Sudden death. Very likely on S/N ratio as well. Quite possibly on transparency too. So back in the real world where reviewers don't perceive the need to measure everything against some abstract ultimate standards, the words perfection, $249 and NuForce Icon all belong in the same sentence. On my DeVore Nines, the sound isn't respectable, good for the money, a hold-over or poor boy's make do. It's impressive as hell and categorically high-performance audio. I have rather more expensive amps in house I overall like less on the Nines though they may beat the Icon in that aspect or this. Really and truly. To conclude, the Icon isn't thin, bright, edgy, jumpy, nervous, flat or pale. It has good but relaxed resolution, nice tone, a very agreeable treble and stupendous bass. It also has drive that belies its power rating. If it can do the Rubies, it has carte blanche for pretty much any mischief a buyer could get into. My experiments already were quite outside its intended applications. Remember, it's marketed as a desk top amp. Do you have any notion how loud 91dB peaks are 3 feet away from you? Loud. If you back-track from there, you'll arrive squarely at the Ruby's unreasonable 82.5dB rating at 1w/1m. That's unexpected to put it mildly. I believe David would confirm that most of the small T amps in his collection don't take to the Ruby with the same enthusiasm if at all. From Ruby to rubbery rhubarb to rubbed out.. |
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Preamp. Integrated. USB DAC. Headphone amp. Subwoofer output. All that in a very nicely made and presented package that inspires pride of ownership and, over the right speakers, works off the desk top and out in the living room where it'll be completely dwarfed by everything else (and where the speaker cables could be double the provided length to really style). Well, I must leave something for David to say, even let him contradict the boss for a bit of dissension if so inspired. Or he might be doing the funky - swap out the wall wart for a beefier one. Or go DC - David has some big batteries he's strapped to T amps before. Or biamp. David is as bi as they come on that score. Plus, he's the man with the deep KingRex, Trends and Winsome Labs familiarity. And the big NuForces. That's why he's perfect to really take the measure of the Icon. I just work here. Regardless, I predict that David would join me in saying that NuForce, as a still younger player, has done the apparently impossible. They have scaled their own proprietary class D solution to mass production level where the corporate giants with the deep pockets roam 'n' rule. Just how NuForce has pulled off this stunt is a story waiting to pounce. Make no mistake, the Icon belongs in the mall next to designer cell phones, mobile accessories and video games. It's tailor-made. Could NuForce really break into such distribution? They've nailed the product. It kills the usual plastic crap on aluminum alone, never mind sonics. That next step -- should deep down-market penetration be their ambition -- will really separate the men from the boys. If they can, Bel Canto, Jeff Rowland, Kharma, PS Audio, Red Dragon and all the other class D adopters in the high end would really be at hello. To shrink something down to the size and price of the Icon is a different ball of wax entirely than putting a transformer on the input of an ICE amp and housing it in a gleaming chunk of audio jewelry or under a laser-etched wood panel for big dragon coin. It's also far more relevant to the survival of hi-performance audio. There's millions of listeners grooving this very moment to play lists. They couldn't give a flying fig about tube amps and top-loading CD transports, Beryllium tweeters and gold-infused silver cables. The NuForce Icon is very much a product of and for this time. Personally? I wish it all the steam in the world, to go as far as its designers hope in their wildest of dreams. Fine audio needs bridges. The NuForce Icon has the earmarkings of being a bridge that many people would cross if the product were stocked in the kind of shops they frequent. It's a solid taste of the hi-end. Over to you, David (our man in the great white north has quite a queue to work through first so don't bug him right away ). This was just the quick 'n' dirty to assure prospective buyers that NuForce isn't just riding their enviable rep to now package a cute but bullshit bundle with their name on it, like a really bad sequel of a very popular original that'll cash in on expectations alone. No, this in many ways seems like even more of a breakthrough product than what they jumped on people before. Once David's findings arrive, we'll put our heads together to decide what it all means in the scheme of special recognitions we have here on the moons. Over and out... |
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| Quality of packing: Superb. Reusability of packing: Absolutely. Ease of unpacking/repacking: Entirely unproblematic Condition of component received: Flawless Completeness of delivery: Contains speaker cables, USB cable, stand, rubber mat, universal wall wart Quality of owner's manual: n/a - the back of the packaging explains everything Website comments: Professional - combined with the NuForce presence on AudioCircle, communications with customers are tops. Warranty: 1 year Global distribution: The Icon will sell Internet-direct through NuForce and, for the same price, their dealers. Human interactions: Prompt and accommodating. Other: Four anodized finish options. Pricing: A steal. Application conditions: USB on my Windows XP Pro was instant plug'n'play. The Icon is a desk-top amp that can fill a 16' x 20' room with serious volumes over the right speaker. Final comments & suggestions: A real mind bender on circuit miniaturization and big performance. Suggestion? SLA battery module option to upgrade wall wart for those who wouldn't mind spending $399 for the package. |
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NuForce comments: Dear Srajan, Thanks for the mini review and especially the recognition of what we have been planning all along: to bring high-end sound to the mass market. Icon alone will not be sufficient. There is an equalization network built into the Icon that when connected (by a standard Cat5 cable) to our forthcoming S-1 speaker (release in late May), will make the S-1 sound very good (the equalization network replaces the crossover in the S-1 which further boosts the performance). The S-1 MSRP will be the same as the Icon. As you can see from the build quality of the Icon now (and the S-1 later), there is enough margin for us to bring the price even lower when we really go mass market. We will be introducing an earphone (MSRP $79) that will sound better than anything on the market, even those headphones costing 2 to 3 x the price. The earphone is in production now :-) I forgot to mention that we will be shipping the following separate accessories for the Icon within a month or two:
By sometime next year, there will be other Icons (Icon Mobile - a very tiny battery-powered Icon is next). |
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NuForce Icon website
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