Review and Measurements of NuForce STA-200 Power Amp

[Sal1950]

Please tell me what the missing element is.

Magic Dust!
You just snort a little and you hear all sort of missing elements.
And believe all the verbose ramblings you read in the magazines and internet

 

[sbo6]

Not this Schiit again.

If measurements are not indicative of how a given piece of equipment sounds, then there's a missing element that's regulating the sound, yet not showing up on measurements. Two pieces of equipment can therefore measure identically yet sound completely different, thanks to this missing element.

Please tell me what the missing element is.

Not this Schiit again. .

That's your job to tell us what might be "missing" that would not show up in measurements that makes 2 identical components not sound identical. Please give us an example.

 

[sbo6]

Magic Dust!
You just snort a little and you hear all sort of missing elements.
And believe all the verbose ramblings you read in the magazines and internet

So then you believe if it meaures identical it sounds identical? You ARE snorting a lot....

 

[Sal1950]

So then you believe if it meaures identical it sounds identical? You ARE snorting a lot....

Please present a verifiable example of two components that measured identical but were proven to sound different under tightly bias controlled DBT listening tests.

 

[NTomokawa]

your job

I sell lighting products. That's my job. But don't worry, a resident anti-BS crusader will come along shortly to assist you.

 

[sbo6]

You're a funny guy, a real keyboard warrior. Correct me if I'm wrong - you claim that measurements capture all that can be heard. As such, prove to me (and others) that this is true.

 

[sbo6]

I sell lighting products. That's my job. But don't worry, a resident anti-BS crusader will come along shortly to assist you.

And I have an engineering background, so there's that big mouth light bulb boy.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Why is it you all never talk about how well the equipment makes music? Isn’t that the reason for audio equipment? Do you listen to cellos, oboes, trumpets, etc. or do you just hear SINAD?

The musicians being recorded are the ones who make music, not my hifi.
I want my kit to reproduce their music without adding anything of its own.
For it to achieve that I look for distortion less than 0.1% (-60dB) and a noise level better than -80dB. It may be that better than that can be just discerned by some people but , for me, these differences are negligible and completely swamped by the differences in sound quality between recordings, which are W-A-Y more than those between different bits of hifi.
That actually means most electronics are good enough though some power amps may not drive some badly engineered speakers due to their load.
The only things actually capable of changing the sound audibly IME and microphones and microphone position (if you make recordings), speakers and speaker position and having enough power to drive the speakers you like without clipping.
This amp would probably sound transparent to me, though the one major thing influencing power amp SQ, tolerance of severe speaker loads, isn't tested here, or most other places, so maybe not.

 

[Frank Dernie]

That's your job to tell us what might be "missing" that would not show up in measurements that makes 2 identical components not sound identical. Please give us an example.

The only thing we can't measure affecting SQ is the placebo effect since it varies from person to person. Some people are very susceptible some others not at all.

 

[Thomas savage]

You're a funny guy, a real keyboard warrior. Correct me if I'm wrong - you claim that measurements capture all that can be heard. As such, prove to me (and others) that this is true.

This account has been suspended, this is not the forum for you.

good news is there's hundreds of others that will suit you.

 

[ms142]

This thread has been up for almost three years and I'm a bit surprised that everyone sounded as if Amir's measurement shows that STA-200 is inferior to the Topping. Am I the only person to notice that distortion is lower than Topping <1W, and the vast majority of music uses less than 1W on reasonably efficient speakers? Let's say you do a time-weighted integral (excluding inaudible silence) of distortion percentage (a dimensionless number, not in watt or volt) over a musical piece, the Nuforce can be an order of magnitude lower in distortion than the Topping.

I own a STA-200, subjectively nothing sounds wrong, even though I could feel some non-zero level of distortion. This measurement actually confirms to me why it's rather good for its $499 price (maybe not $1299) and a good deal compared to Topping.

 

[maxxevv]

1W ?

Seriously.

What would you be listening with at 1W ? At sub 1 meter distances perhaps ?

 

[sofrep811]

Thx for review. I’ve always been suspect about this amp. Really NuForce in general for some of their prices.