Unsolicited Customer Testimonials
The majority of our testimonials were emailed directly from the customer on their own merit. Some are merely excerpts from online posts, used with the customers' permission.

NEW July 15, 2010

NuForce Oppo BDP-83SE Signature Edition - New Update Performed

David,

The NuForce came a couple of days ago. This update to your original upgrade is truly remarkable!
think the SACD might be as good as vinyl now. I have been listening to "Someday My Prince Will Come" on SACD by Miles Davis just released by AP- a great recording that I have on both SACD and 45 rpm vinyl.

I am amazed at this recent update in the Nuforce Oppo. For under a small fraction of the original SE upgrade you performed, it is a huge increase in quality. Beyond what I thought digital was capable of. You are truly gifted and now that you are getting so much business I'll be waiting in line for you to do a lot more of my stuff.

Thanks, Bret Miller

NEW July, 2010

NuForce REF9SE V3 Monoblock Ampliier Upgrade

I recently had David of The Upgrade Company perform their Signature Edition upgrades on my Nuforce Ref 9 SE V3 monoblock power amplifiers.

All amplifiers sound different. Sometimes when the ear acclimates to the sound of new amp, especially after a stark contrast the Signature Edition upgrade provided, we hear things like distortion, timing, detail, warmth, speed, and accuracy. These are just words. The sound can only be experienced. Class D switching amplifiers use full on or full off voltage switches that make compact, reasonably priced, energy efficient amplifiers. They use "pulse width modulation" to compare to a high frequency standard "clock" frequency to generate widths of square waves that can then be converted to a sine wave. If the pulse width is off just a little there will be a lot of total harmonic distortion. Accurate quality parts and careful crafting of installation of those parts will make or break the final quality of the sound. I am not schooled in electricity, but I fathom this is like the DSD 1 bit bit-stream of Super Audio CD format. Old school guy's like my Hi-Fi repair man ( a veteran of the American-Vietnam war who knows his trade well) will laugh if you say class D amplifier for audio. Now things are coming along.

My speakers are difficult to find the right amplifiers for, and the Nuforce Ref 9 SE V2's seemed to be the best fit. When Nuforce put out their newest V3- I was excited and was reading great reviews, so I bought a pair. The amplifiers were a huge disappointment even burned-in, I bought them 2nd hand.

However, David transformed these into State of the Art amplifiers. They took a really long time to break in mainly due to some Black Gate capacitors used in the upgrade, but now they sound great from top to bottom, with a huge bottom end, warm and musical, yet very detailed. A list of amplifiers I've owned include: Aronov tube, Pass sold state, VTL triode and pentode, McIntosh ss, Transcendent OTL Integra ss, Monarchy SM70 Pro class A ss. I recommend the Nuforce Ref 9SE V3's only with David's SE upgrade and a long break in time. At last my passion for audio and environment can live in harmony,and the amps have a small footprint and look great. Also the Nuforce company has been very good for service as I own several of their products now, taking good care of me anytime anything needed service under warrantee quickly and efficiently. The amps are so easy to box and ship to California or to Upgrade Company if anything is ever needed.

Bret L Miller
Springfield, IL

NEW June, 2010

NuForce Oppo BDP-83E, NuForce MCH-SE 7, NuForce AVP-17

WOW..... That was my first reaction to my newly upgraded system and David Schulte is one of the major contributors. I've been searching for musical nirvana for about 15 years, replacing components, trying expensive models, always left me wanting more. Well let me tell you my search has ended. David you truly are a wizard of electronics. I have listened in showrooms to high end systems costing $80,000 dollars that do not even compare.

Here's my set up:

NuForce Oppo BDP-83SE Blu-ray player, NuForce MCH-SE 7 channel amplifier, NuForce AVP-17 preamp processor. I'm running Balanced Power Technology power cords and their BTPT-CPC power conditioner. Interconnects are from Pure Silver Sound. Each component is on a vibration control platform I made with Vibrapods. I love 'em. Tried a lot of vibration isolation options, and these worked the best for me. My speakers are Paradigm Reference version 3.Studio 100 for fronts, Paradigm CC-570 for my center channel, Paradigm Studio 20s for my rear surround, Paradigm Servo 15 for my subwoofer.

I feel the main reasons my system sounds so great now are due to The Upgrade Company's upgrades to the NuForce (huge improvements over stock), Christopher Hoff's cables and the CPC power control center from Balanced Power Technologies.

I am very very happy with how this system is currently sounding, it's INCREDIBLE!!!

Thank you again David for a job well done. :)

Chris Stark

NEW April, 2010

Oppo 83 Special Edition and NuForce Oppo 83 Special Edition

David,

I'm writing this and including a picture we took because I'm still flat-out amazed.

I made an appointment with David to trek 5 hours up to Harbor Springs to spend an afternoon at The Upgrade Company comparing the stock versus upgraded Oppo 83 Special Edition and NuForce Oppo 83 Special Edition players. I was contemplating purchasing one if I liked what I heard.

David put on a new OPPO 83 Special Edition player he'd just upgraded. We double blind A-B compared it against an entire Esoteric P-03/D-03/G-0Rb 3 box digital CD/SACD system worth about $40,000 when you include the Transparent Reference cabling to hook it all up. The "upgraded" Oppo beat it bad. Right off the bat. Since I'd just met David an hour earlier I was in disbelief and had to literally pull the interconnect cables from each one as it was playing to believe it.

When I arrived I'd offered to help David unbox the heavy Esoteric P03/D03/G0Rb set that had just been delivered earlier that day. I helped him carry it inside and set it on the demo rack. The P03 transport weighed about 70 lbs alone, the D03 dac not far behind. The 3 Esoteric boxes were all still sealed, I actually broke all the tape myself with the box cutters. Each box had his customers shipping labels on them, so I asked David to track the shipments and show me when they arrived. UPS.com showed all 3 boxes had just been delivered less then 2 hrs ago that day. I had David pull the tops off he 3 Esoteric pieces to see if they were indeed still stock, and they all looked original, and the screws showed no signs of prior removal, and I looked close.

I think anyone would agree with me that the upgraded Oppo creamed the Esoteric P03/D03/G0Rb set. My girlfriend sure did. Not only did we both find the sound of the Oppo to be far larger and more open and more musical with much higher resolution, the Oppo's bass was real quick and deep and just slammed. The Esoteric had very weak bass, a small soundstage and it sounded aggressive, forward and harsh sounding. When we switched to the OPPO 83SE, the treble and mids were clear as a bell, intelligible and detailed. I checked behind everything to see if there were different power cords or analog interconnects. Everything looked the same. David offered to switch the power cords and interconnects on the OPPO and D-03 dac around just to further eliminate variables. He did so, I heard the exact same results. We then switched duplicate discs back and forth, same results. We swapped various power cords and interconnects, still the upgraded OPPO always was way ahead sonically. Volumes were level matched as to within 0.1dB using a digital tripod mounted SPL level meter.

We let both the Esoteric and OPPO play on repeat using identical discs, power cords and interconnects for a couple of hours on that demo system while we hung out and checked out his place and the other systems. Couple of hours later, the OPPO ended up pulling even farther ahead as it warmed up. The Esoteric set was reported to be 2 years old and well used, so it had plenty of burn-in on it. David said the Oppo was brand new & shipping out to it's new owner shortly. So clearly the Oppo had a disadvantage being brand new. The Esoteric's Transparent Reference AES-EBU and MIT BNC-BNC clock cables were reported to be 4 years old, so in my eyes the cables were not holding the Esoteric back at all. Switching to the upgraded OPPO was like letting the dog off the leash. Woosh!

David switched, I listened. I switched and listened. David paused each player to show which one was playing after I had voiced my preference as to which sound I Iiked better. This way it was truly double blind.

We also put in and double blind A-B'd an Upgrade Co. upgraded NuForce 83SE that had about 40 hours of burn-in on it, and we double blind AB-'d some other "modded" players, some older Upgrade Co. upgraded players, and yet more stock expensive players including an $11,500 EMM LABS CDSA player which I expected would easily surpass the upgraded Oppo 83SE, but it did not, not in any way whatsoever. However when David pulled out his upgraded EMM LABS CDSA it creamed the NuForce, as would be expected out of an upgraded $11,500 player with a pricey upgrade.

I'd heard about Denon 5910's being popular to mod so I asked to hear one. David had on hand a 2 year old SE upgraded Denon 5910 that was traded in, and it too was also better then the stock P-03/D-03/G0Rb and all of the other players we tried including the stock EMM LABS CDSA and the other modded & stock players. I got the sense that Upgrade Co. has improved a whole lot over the years, because the 5910 was clearly not in the league of the Oppo/NuForce 83SE's that were upgraded.

I wanted to demo the upgraded McIntosh MVP-881, but unfortunately they did not have one in stock the day I was there. David claims the upgraded McIntosh 881 player is even better sounding then the NuForce 83SE. They did have a new stock Denon DVD-A1UDCi, but not an upgraded one on hand. The Denon didn't sound very good at all stock, rather poor. David says the Denon performs slightly better on video then the Oppo/NuForce, but I'm more interested in sound then video performance.

Overall I liked the NuForce Oppo 83SE with the Signature Edition upgrade the best of all the players I heard that day. The NuForce 83SE Signature Edition upgraded had the most bass slam and overall clarity. It threw a humongous soundstage, had great bass slam and definition, and it sounded the most musical and analog. I also liked your upgraded EMM LABS CDSA and upgraded Esoteric DV-60 players, they were better then the NuForce but out of my budget.

I heard clear and utterly convincing sonic variations between each and every player. Some were clearly worse and some were clearly better. There was not one stock player that I could live with after hearing the upgraded players. Only when heard next to an upgraded player did I find that stock players have a characteristic "whitish" hazy background and overall lack of clarity, lack of bass weight, veiled ill-defined mids and scratchy/screechy highs and mids, a characteristic lack of musicality, lack of dimensionality, generally flat, small, rolled off, and boring sounding. I don't want to slam manufacturer's or other modders, but I can tell you it was a real eye opener. I can now see why Upgrade Company is the only one who can provide a 100% Buy-Back Guarantee and still stay in business after all these years. They had lots of customer's stuff in there waiting to be upgraded.

If Upgrade Co. was not so far off the beaten path so that others could drive up and hear what I heard, there would be a lot less skepticism.

The work you do at The Upgrade Company stands alone and is unmatched in my eyes. It is quite impressive to see you take a stock $899 Oppo 83 Special Edition and far surpass the stock Esoteric P-03/D-03/G-0Rb set wired with high dollar Transparent Reference cables. Most people do not believe in upgrades/mods. I too was skeptical and did not believe your claims until I performed live double blind A-B comparisons myself and checked all the wiring and eliminated every possible variable I could.

For roughly $2500 you are giving the audiophile community an incredible deal in the Oppo/NuForce players.

Thanks for everything. You are truly a gifted man.

Anthony Beauchene

Kalamazoo, Michigan

NEW March, 2010

Nuforce Oppo BDP-83SE "Signature Edition" upgraded review by Mark Coles, London, UK

As the owner of an Upgrade Company (TUC) Esoteric X-01 referred to by EM Lee (Lloyd) in his OPPO review elsewhere on the www.upgradecompany.com site, my interest was piqued by what I heard at that shoot-out back in January. Whilst the early TUC Oppo 83 Non-Special Edition wasn't in the same league as my player, it had an inherent musicality and was fun to listen to.

As we all know, the world of digital evolves quickly and I'd been having reservations about having too much invested in a player whose sole media is in the twilight of its years. A number of conversations with David Schulte led me to believe that the 32 bit Oppo Special Edition version of the Oppo had a far greater audio potential than the base 83 and was the way forward for me. Having found a new home for my Esoteric after 3.5 years of ownership, I placed an order for the NuForce edition with all the options available at that time (Bybees and hi-end fuse). The Upgrade Company's balanced XLR output stage hadn't been fully developed at that stage and I understand that gives a considerable further improvement.

When I received my NuForce 83SE player, I left it playing with a burn in disc on repeat for a few hundred hours before attempting any critical listening. My initial impressions were that it was good, more transparent than the upgraded $14,000 Esoteric X-01. I had a chat with Lloyd, who told me about the improvements he heard with HRS damping plates. As an experiment, I had a go at dampening the chassis with things close to hand - some polymer deflex pads, a large book and a 5 kg dumbbell. Wow. Everything now clicked into place musically and the player sounded nothing short of sensational!

Compared to my Esoteric X-01, the extra transparency allows one to see deeper into the recording and better place instruments / voices within the sound stage. Greater tonal decay is also evident, as are stability and solidity. The esoteric had a tendency towards a more analytical and tipped up presentation and the NuForce OPPO is better balanced throughout the frequency range, testing the bass extension of my speakers more fully. The only negative I can report is that I miss the battleship build quality of the 60lb Esoteric!

In closing, I would also like to give praise to the service David Schulte has given me consistently over the four years that I've known him. He has always been attentive in answering emails with helpful advice and 100% committed to customer satisfaction. With his money back guarantee, there's little risk to putting his work to the test in your own home!

Mark Coles

London UK

NEW November 2009

Nuforce/Denon Upgrades

Been a while since I've written you. Three weeks ago I visited a Hi-End store in San Antonio Texas. I had the chance to hear a $200,000 stereo system, latest top of the line all McIntosh. Huge speakers with three piece amps per channel to drive them.

McIntosh transport and DAC, and their beautiful top line tubed preamp. It sure looked awesome, the sound was incredibly loud, loud enough to drive a football stadium, but my system around a pair of your upgraded Nuforce amps, matching upgraded Nuforce preamp and your upgraded Denon 3910 from way back, played through my Wilson Watt Puppy 5.1's or even my B&W 802N's, sounds a lot better! Much more realistic, better separation between the instruments, darker background, less haze and noise, far more musical.

I would not change the sound of my system for the sound of the $200,000 top of the line McIntosh one.

Thanks a lot.
Sincerely,
Alfredo Piñeyro-Garza

NEW July 2009

My system now contains the following SE upgraded units from Upgrade Company:
- Esoteric X-03 SE
- Nuforce P-8 pre
- Nuforce Ref 9.02 V2 SE monoblock amplifiers
- SIM Audio Moon LP 5.3 LP phono stage

Other equipment:
Speakers: Audio Physic Calderas, Vinyl: Rega P-9+Rega Apheta ,

I have already given feedback on the wonderful "Signature Edition" Upgrade Company performed on my Esoteric X-03 SE I purchases directly from David brand new from Esoteric last year. This player is now the cornerstone in my set up together with the Calderas, that never change. The X-03SE was the first product I upgraded with David Schulte& Upgrade Co. It never disappoints. The SE upgraded Esoteric and the Audio Physics Caldera's show the tiniest changes in the setup.
Now to the NuForce's: when David Schulte first recommended the SE upgraded NUForce P-8 and REF9.02 SE V2's, at these products I was a bit skeptical; could these products really even stand a chance against the big boys?

Well, I read some reviews and saw that NuForce was not typical class D stuff. My amplification at the time was a Gryphon Diablo MSRP $15000. I was hopeful the NuForce would be better, but I was not prepared for just how good these little boxes are.
Well, I purchased the NuForce. Cold out of the box, I could hear there was a great potential! I let them play a couple of days, then let them have some decent power cable which resulted in a big soundstage. Wonderfully relaxed but dynamic, clear, very deep bass and beautiful velvety sound. Out went the Gryphon…

The sound was so good, that I had to bring the upgraded P-8 preamp and the upgraded Esoteric X-03SE to a friend who has the stock Esoteric UX-01 and the Evolution 2 pre monos that cost USD $20,000 each. The P-08 alone not even warmed up was damned close to the Krell pre, and together with the X-03SE this combo smoked the UX-01/Evo 2 set up! I am to this day still astonished, frankly shocked and glad at the same time. My friend could not believe his ears, and thanks David, you really do something to the electronics that shock the established high end companies.

Paul Fløholm, Norway

David, just a line to let you know how wonderful your upgraded Nuforce P-8 is:

I purchased the Upgrade Company modded P-8 preamplifier.  I had just sold my Supratek Dual Cabernet tubed preamp, so I know what great sound is.  I replaced it with the Upgrade Companies modded P-8 not expecting it to be anywhere near the Supratek.  Well not only was it as good in some ways but in some ways excelled it: in quietness, speed and bass.  It is also very musical.  It is very satisfying.  If you are in the market for a great preamp at any price try the Upgrade Company's modded NuForce P-8. 

David Schulte is the real deal.

E.H. in Illinois