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REVIEW (in progress) - Nuforce HDP 24/96 USB-Optical 24/192 Coax DAC Preamp and Headphone Amp - Page 3

post #31 of 1609
2/1/10 at 7:46am
Thank you. I was just going to say the same. Long time Nuforce customers know that we are very honest.
CDP-8 is a different product than Icon HDP, even though they shared the same DAC. What we are doing is nothing different from many car companies. Their top of the line race car technologies eventually propagated down to family sedan. Our high-end products are not cheap, the latest (not release yet) Reference 18 mono amp will set you back $8000 / pair and we have high demand for it. They are designed to compete with products in the 5 digit price range

Anyway, we have decided to set Icon HDP at $449 and just release more complete spec on the website.
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post #32 of 1609
2/1/10 at 7:56am
Excellent desicion.
i think you'd sell many more units at this price.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jasonl View Post
Thank you. I was just going to say the same. Long time Nuforce customers know that we are very honest.
CDP-8 is a different product than Icon HDP, even though they shared the same DAC. What we are doing is nothing different from many car companies. Their top of the line race car technologies eventually propagated down to family sedan. Our high-end products are not cheap, the latest (not release yet) Reference 18 mono amp will set you back $8000 / pair and we have high demand for it. They are designed to compete with products in the 5 digit price range

Anyway, we have decided to set Icon HDP at $449 and just release more complete spec on the website.
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post #33 of 1609
2/1/10 at 8:00am
No balanced outputs I guess?
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post #34 of 1609
2/1/10 at 9:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by K3cT View Post
No balanced outputs I guess?
However tongue-in-cheek this request might be, to me it illustrates what Jason and others are up against. The Formula 1 stuff may well be trickling down into the family sedan, but many Head-Fiers want the F1 car at family sedan prices - that is not the same thing. The accepted marketing solution is to put racing stripes on the base model, give it a name like 'Demon' and sell them by the truckload. I look forward to seeing those stripes, er, balanced outputs, Jason !
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post #35 of 1609
2/1/10 at 3:12pm
Very interesting Larry.

I know that your demo unit is not fully burned but so far, do you think that the HDP is a much better product than the uDAC with IEMs like the JH13s ?
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post #36 of 1609
2/1/10 at 3:20pm
When do we get to see pictures?

edit: please
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post #37 of 1609
2/1/10 at 3:31pm
The first thing that comes to me that this unit is a direct competitor to the Carat Topaz. Hopefully someone who has both can make a comparison
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post #38 of 1609
2/1/10 at 3:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jasonl View Post
Thank you. I was just going to say the same. Long time Nuforce customers know that we are very honest.
CDP-8 is a different product than Icon HDP, even though they shared the same DAC. What we are doing is nothing different from many car companies. Their top of the line race car technologies eventually propagated down to family sedan. Our high-end products are not cheap, the latest (not release yet) Reference 18 mono amp will set you back $8000 / pair and we have high demand for it. They are designed to compete with products in the 5 digit price range

Anyway, we have decided to set Icon HDP at $449 and just release more complete spec on the website.
Jasonl, when can we expect some updates re the DAC-9? While the HDP is appealing, some of us already have good headphone amps and are looking for a good reference level DAC. Thanks!
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post #39 of 1609
2/1/10 at 4:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fantoon View Post
The first thing that comes to me that this unit is a direct competitor to the Carat Topaz. Hopefully someone who has both can make a comparison
The Topaz is basically a good DAC with a so-so headphone amp. I'm still not sure that upsampling everything to 192kHz is ideal, but I like pairing the Topaz with my integrated amp - I am hoping for a significantly better headphone amp in the HDP. If both the amp and DAC are an improvement, I will probably sell the Topaz - I just cant see the HDP having the small form factor of the Topaz, but I'm not entirely sure that will be a bad thing.
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post #40 of 1609
2/1/10 at 4:33pm
While larry might be able to shine more light on this subject, it appears that the amp capability, at least from his limited preview does not seem to offer huge power reserves that might be necessary for some cans. I have 701s and while ideally like a one box solution (but I am still considering the 19DAC and C2 from Audio GD). Any idea how this might stack up for HP amp duty for something like the k701s?
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post #41 of 1609
2/1/10 at 6:00pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by pfillion View Post
Very interesting Larry.

I know that your demo unit is not fully burned but so far, do you think that the HDP is a much better product than the uDAC with IEMs like the JH13s ?
I haven't had enough time with it, nor is burn-in complete to give a proper answer. I said before that I will offer more comparisons in the final review. My initial impressions are that the HDP headphone out is better than the uDAC with my full size phones, but I haven't tried to determine that with my custom IEM while the amp burns in.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fantoon View Post
The first thing that comes to me that this unit is a direct competitor to the Carat Topaz. Hopefully someone who has both can make a comparison
Quote:
Originally Posted by estreeter View Post
The Topaz is basically a good DAC with a so-so headphone amp. I'm still not sure that upsampling everything to 192kHz is ideal, but I like pairing the Topaz with my integrated amp - I am hoping for a significantly better headphone amp in the HDP. If both the amp and DAC are an improvement, I will probably sell the Topaz - I just cant see the HDP having the small form factor of the Topaz, but I'm not entirely sure that will be a bad thing.
This is a no brainer - while I tested a borrowed TOPAZ a while ago, the TOPAZ headphone out was "just okay", and only with the HD600 did I think I could use it on a long term basis due to the colorations of the amp working well with those phones. The HDP headphone out is a bit better than I recall the TOPAZ being.

In the final review I will be comparing the HDP headphone out to the Apogee mini-DAC headphone out, where I have always been happy with the Apogee's. As for line-out quality, the TOPAZ optical DAC > line out seemed to be on par with the Headroom Micro DAC, while throwing in a headphone jack for only $49 more. I didn't consider it to be a giant killer and I wont be able to compare it to the HDP line out, because I don't have the Topaz here now.
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post #42 of 1609
2/4/10 at 2:41am
What would be the major competitors for the HDP in its price range?
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post #43 of 1609
2/4/10 at 3:28am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChiComm4 View Post
What would be the major competitors for the HDP in its price range?
I haven't investigated all that yet, because it's complicated - this is a DAC and an Amp, and a Pre-amp where you can switch between various digital or analog sources. And, it's a 24/96 USB DAC, where there aren't that many of those around.
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post #44 of 1609
2/4/10 at 9:05am
I see that the price on the NuForce HDP page has reduced to $449. The reported ship date of February 8 is only 4 days away. May we have some photos? Pretty please? I can't buy one right now, but I could drool.
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post #45 of 1609
2/4/10 at 12:40pm
no pics yet?
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