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Nuprime IDA-8 DAC measurements

DDF

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Courtesy of a kind loan from a local DIYer, I had some bench time with an RTX6001.
https://www.virtins.com/RTX6001.shtml

I used it to measure a Nuprime IDA-8 DAC and pre-amp section since no test results exist on line for this product and its received some glowing reviews from the audio press. The manufacturer's web site is:
https://nuprimeaudio.com/product/ida-8/?v=3e8d115eb4b3

Test results were constrained by my available time which led to use of RMAA but the set up was carefully benckmarked here:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...udio-measurement-gear.113/page-12#post-153972
Results will be limited by the common mode noise of the RTX6001.

Tests were taken from the usb in to the sub out, which is really a wideband pre-amp output. RMAA also provides limited options for setting up record and playback powers and best results are found avoiding too much A/D gain. So, the results were with the source ~ -4.5 dB relFS before D/A maybe leaving a few dB on the table.

The unit supports most any format outside of MQA and is based around the ES9010K2M Sabre chip. Its form factor is desktop friendly and on careful inspection the construction quality is actually quite good. The mechanical designer earned his keep packaging this one up:
Nuprime IDA-8 Topless.JPG


Packed in there is a supposedly 100Wx2 class-d amp. Comparing seat of the pants to my Bryston 60Wx2 2BLP Pro, I think Nuprime's power rating is a bit of a stretch but didn't have time to measure the amp section. The supply is a switcher, and all this tech is in close proximity. The layout did a good job keeping power supply and switcher noise as far from possible from sensitive line level electronics

Over-all, performance was decent if not class leading. 24 bit 96kHz:
Nuprime IDA-8 24_96 Summary.JPG


The anti-aliasing filter was gentle:
Nuprime IDA-8 24_96 Frequency Response.JPG


There were many very low level noise components even without an active input:
Nuprime IDA-8 24_96 Noise.JPG


I can't help but wonder if this is a trade off for such a small form factor (noise from the switcher or amp coupling in) or whether there is some aliasing noise wrapping back in as putting in a tone make things a bit more interesting:

Nuprime IDA-8 24_96 THD Noise.JPG

It looks worse than it is since RMAA's measurement have significant FFT gain. Curiously, those 7, 8, and 9 kHz components were a common feature even without signal presence (so I don't think they were HD).

At 16 bit/44.1kHz, most of this hash gets lost in the noise floor of the test kit and 16 bit limit:
Nuprime IDA-8 16_44.1 Summary.JPG

Nuprime IDA-8 16_44.1 Noise.JPG


Frequency response is as expected:
Nuprime IDA-8 16_44.1 Frequency Response.JPG

THD @ 1kHz is in the noise except for a bit of third harmonic, but we see the 7, 8 and 9 kHz low level tones once again
Nuprime IDA-8 16_44.1 THD Noise.JPG


The unit measures decently if not breaking any new ground and I'm happy with the outcome. I think digging any deeper would require a higher end test kit.
 

pozz

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Again, added and nice work.
 

T.T.

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I decided to share my view on this device, as obviously there were no responses to this limited review and perhaps there are other potential buyers looking for information. I did not buy it though based on any review, I was a long time user of Nuforce Icon-2 amplifier (diminutive class-D desktop ampifier) and I was very satisfied with it, so with the upgrade I stayed with the brand (I considered Nuforce an ancestor to Nuprime despite the founder himself may not agree). It all began with headphone amp uDac, which had very little competition at the time, the same applied to the Icon-2 amplifier, it was a perfect all-in-one solution for me for almost 10 years. At first I used the IDA-8 with my old speakers, Tangent Clarity 4, there was noticable difference right away on both ends, bass pitch was clearer and it gave more bite in treble. Later I bought Elac Debut Dbr62 based on ASR review (quite an odyssey, see my posts on the dedicated thread for more details) and now I believe I found almost perfect combination in terms of value (I had great discount on both, it cost less than 1000€ combined).

I must admit that when I discovered this objectivist site I was afraid that I was a victim of audiophile BS, as there is a lot of audiophile jargon on Nuprime site. Although I was a satisfied user of their previous products, I knew that with my ears and my system I could not discern. I was happy to find that at least the DAC/pre-amp tested quite good, although I found the line-out to be a bit noisy. Not a problem for me as I don't need line-out, there is plenty of bass coming from DBR62 for me (PC > IDA-8 > DBR62). I must say that I found that the room makes much more difference than amp+speakers combination. I spent a lot of time with speaker positioning and furniture/absorption placing. I am still bothered with a peak at 135hz, but the FR is quite even othwervise. I use it at quite low volume + nearfield, and it is almost perfect in that scenario ( I don't like it too much when loud, but that's the room effect I believe).

So back the to IDA-8. It is very compact and very powerful. It gets quite hot due to class-A pre-amp, but not overly so. There is a bit of hiss when you put you ear against the tweeter, but that's a stupid thing to do, isn't it :) Anyways, Nuforce Icon-2 was dead silent and cool, Nuprime IDA-8 isn't. I found the clarity and dynamics superb with this amp, but considering I tried only 3 budget speakers and amps, it may not be representative. The build is very nice and solid, though the knobs have a bit of a wobble (it has not worsen over almost 2 years). The display is a bit too bright, even if you dim it, the one dot that remains will illuminate your room in the dark :) The remote control is quite directional so you need to point it precisely. I would also prefer if the power supply transformer was external, as I can hear a bit of hum when it is on my desk. Overall I believe it provides great value. You get DAC (optical, coaxial, USB, BT) + analog input, subwoofer output and powerful amp. It does not have headphone amp, but I don't use headphones at the desk, so it is all-in-one solution for me.
 

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AnalogSteph

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I am not entirely convinced that these measurements actually reflect true device performance... I see a fair bit of what I suspect is ground loop noise there. The unbalanced-> balanced adapter cable may have been suboptimal, not actually making use of the balanced input as such. It appears that both the Nuprime and RTX6001 are IEC Class I devices. Anyway, it's too late now.
 

T.T.

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PS: regarding the line-out noise, I am not judging based on the measurements. I tried to use it for double stereo, line-out to another amp with IDA-8 volume set to very low. As it is variable line-out, it required quite high volume on the other amp and it was a bit too noisy for that kind of usage (the other amp even shut down due to low signal). I believe it would not be a problem for a subwoofer, as it was mostly high frequency noise.
 
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DDF

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I am not entirely convinced that these measurements actually reflect true device performance... I see a fair bit of what I suspect is ground loop noise there. The unbalanced-> balanced adapter cable may have been suboptimal, not actually making use of the balanced input as such. It appears that both the Nuprime and RTX6001 are IEC Class I devices. Anyway, it's too late now.

I've measured many amps and dac/pres (used to do this for a living, know my way around test gear) and this is the real noise floor, FWIW.

Agree with all of T.T's usability findings (except mine doesn't hum). Here is a factory amplifier test result:
1638584969021.png

I do find the amp has some haze, it would be interesting to see high frequency linearity tests. I ran some preliminary amp tests and found higher THD than the factory but speaker cold was grounded to the test gear: if the output is bridged (Nuprime wouldn't answer), that could explain it. Jury is still out

I also had the DAC/pre section blow at just over a year. Nuprime at first wouldn't cover it (I was surprised to find the warranty was only 1 year) but eventually they sent me a new board for free (took months, but I had great dealer support from Summit HiFi) and I swapped it in myself.

Summit is a great dealer but Nuprime is a bit "challenging" to deal with. When I was having ground loop issues with the expensive DAC-10H (and not with my 3 other DACs) Jason fed me some BS line that it was because the dac is so "super sensitive". What insulting nonsense (I told him I'm a EE but that didn't stop him from feeding me bull).

I think the price is a bit high given the dodgy remote, just OK performance and questionable reliability unless you absolutely need a small footprint but I'm satisfied enough with it now in passive pre/dac mode (Bryston amp), I use it daily. I turn it off every night now, hoping to prolong its life.
 

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T.T.

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I've measured many amps and dac/pres (used to do this for a living, know my way around test gear) and this is the real noise floor, FWIW.

Agree with all of T.T's usability findings (except mine doesn't hum). Here is a factory amplifier test result:
View attachment 170003
I do find the amp has some haze, it would be interesting to see high frequency linearity tests. I ran some preliminary amp tests and found higher THD than the factory but speaker cold was grounded to the test gear: if the output is bridged (Nuprime wouldn't answer), that could explain it. Jury is still out

I also had the DAC/pre section blow at just over a year. Nuprime at first wouldn't cover it (I was surprised to find the warranty was only 1 year) but eventually they sent me a new board for free (took months, but I had great dealer support from Summit HiFi) and I swapped it in myself.

Summit is a great dealer but Nuprime is a bit "challenging" to deal with. When I was having ground loop issues with the expensive DAC-10H (and not with my 3 other DACs) Jason fed me some BS line that it was because the dac is so "super sensitive". What insulting nonsense (I told him I'm a EE but that didn't stop him from feeding me bull).

I think the price is a bit high given the dodgy remote, just OK performance and questionable reliability unless you absolutely need a small footprint but I'm satisfied enough with it now in passive pre/dac mode (Bryston amp), I use it daily. I turn it off every night now, hoping to prolong its life.

thanks for sharing your experience. Seems like I can't expect longevity, shame, I had hoped I had settled for next decade at least.
I also get ground loop hum when I connect TV via HDMI while using USB as audio source. It is quite rare scenario for me, so not a big problem. I tried galvanic isolator, which helped, but it was low quality and low-speed, sometimes the connection was lost. Now I just unplug the TV when I listen to music.
 
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nalap

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I've been reading some positive audio reviews about the NuPrime IDA-8 so further investigating led me to this thread. Does anyone have updates on their experience with this amp ? Any new owners care to tell their experiences with this amp.... good or bad ?

FYI... i'm in the market for an integrated amp with 100-150 WPC, MM phono support , subwoofer out, in the $1,200 USD ballpark. And I'd really like to have front-panel USB for playing my iPod but that seems to be a stretch.
 

T.T.

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I've been reading some positive audio reviews about the NuPrime IDA-8 so further investigating led me to this thread. Does anyone have updates on their experience with this amp ? Any new owners care to tell their experiences with this amp.... good or bad ?

FYI... i'm in the market for an integrated amp with 100-150 WPC, MM phono support , subwoofer out, in the $1,200 USD ballpark. And I'd really like to have front-panel USB for playing my iPod but that seems to be a stretch.

I can confirm it still works after >3.5 years :) But I will reiterate the hum issue, the power supply seems very sensitive, it is worst when washing machine is on. I also had problems when I switched to Intel NUC, which caused ground loop and terrible coil whine getting to speakers. I have to either use galvanic USB isolator or conversion to optical.

Based on your requirements I would suggest "Pro-Ject MaiA DS3" (or DS2): https://www.project-audio.com/en/product/maia-ds3/
It has everything except the USB on the front panel :). It has not been reviewed here, but other Pro-Ject devices did get positive reviews from Amir.
 
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DDF

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First post in eons.

My advice is stay away from it. Stay away from Nuprime.

The IDA8 was great for a while. Then the DAC malfunctioned badly and they sent me a new main board I had to replace myself. I did but the amp section sounded bad and measured very high in distortion. After 2 months of foot dragging with Nuprime, it was sent back ($$ shipping) and they claimed no fault found and sent it back.

I measured it again, amp section distortion high and it sounded bad. By this point, I was 10 months without a functioning unit. So I've used it since only as a dac/pre-amp, and a Bryston as the amp. Lots of hum (but only with the external amp) initially no matter what I tried (never a noise issue before with the Bryston). All that worked was a cheater plug on the IDA-8. Nuprime even recommended this on their web site. Its worked fine as a dac pre (no amp) ever since (3+ years) but what a royal pita.

I also have a DAC-10H that had bad hum issues, headset jack broke (rarely used, the HD jack mechanical design isn't reliable, I fixed it myself), it had bad USB packet noise on the audio and it would often drop audio until I swapped to a different PC AND used the PC with a non grounded supply. Then it worked fine. Seems like they don't know proper power supply and or grounding design in these units. I've had zero issues with 4 or 5 other dacs, several pre-amps and amps and the original PC on all of them. The unit measured well and sounds great to me but if I knew I'd be going through this hassle, I never would have bought it.

I also found them very frustrating to deal with, feeding me obvious whoppers like the packet noise being there because the gear is ultra hifi sensitive. Sure.

Just avoid. Dealing with this gear and the company personally sucked a lot of enjoyment out of listening for me.

That was my experience FWIW.

Through it all, Summit HiFi in Toronto took care of me as best possible, they were great.
 
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nalap

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Thanks for the replies T.T. and DDF, after posting here I continued to research and found more disgruntled owners. Definitely not a product or company that I care to deal with.
 

Barry_Sound

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I can confirm it still works after >3.5 years :) But I will reiterate the hum issue, the power supply seems very sensitive, it is worst when washing machine is on. I also had problems when I switched to Intel NUC, which caused ground loop and terrible coil whine getting to speakers. I have to either use galvanic USB isolator or conversion to optical.
Maybe this is one of the cases where a power filter indeed would improve performance?
 

Barry_Sound

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First post in eons.

My advice is stay away from it. Stay away from Nuprime.

The IDA8 was great for a while. Then the DAC malfunctioned badly and they sent me a new main board I had to replace myself. I did but the amp section sounded bad and measured very high in distortion. After 2 months of foot dragging with Nuprime, it was sent back ($$ shipping) and they claimed no fault found and sent it back.

(…)

I also have a DAC-10H that had bad hum issues, headset jack broke (rarely used, the HD jack mechanical design isn't reliable, I fixed it myself), it had bad USB packet noise on the audio and it would often drop audio until I swapped to a different PC AND used the PC with a non grounded supply. Then it worked fine.
Maybe just unlucky. Cant say anything about the IDA-8 but I personally stay away from do-it-all devices. I am running the Nuprime DAC-9 (stand alone DAC only) and like it a lot. Also I never had a headphone jack break on anything. These are bought in bulk from suppliers, not designed from scratch. How can they be not mechanically reliable?

Best
 

T.T.

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Maybe this is one of the cases where a power filter indeed would improve performance?
if they did what they promise to do... :) Based on my research the most effective and also the cheapest way is the galvanic isolation, if you prefer using Nuprime ASIO driver (PC recognizes Nuprime directly), but the bandwidth is limited and it is not 100% stable. I currently use SMSL converter to optical, with SMSL/XMOS ASIO driver, full bandwidth and no hiccups.
 
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