- Thread Author
- #1
Dear Friends,
I have to apologize. It has been a long time since I first posted here at Audio Shark, and I should have been back long before now. I won’t bore you with the details, but the upshot is that we have had to deal with a lot of changes and issues over the last year or so. Mostly typical stuff like selling a house and moving, etc., but then along the way my stepdaughter suffered a recent health crisis too. Therefore, we spent a lot of time watching the three young grand kids (under 10) while their mom was (thankfully) recovering. Things seem to have been settling down lately though, so now we’re starting to get caught up on some “loose ends” that have needed tending to - like getting my butt back here to start participating as I should.
In any case, I just wanted to drop in and let folks know that we are still here and looking forward to helping in whatever ways we can. Seeing it has been so long and then on top of that I only made the one initial posting, many may not be aware of who we are or what we do here at TDSS. So as a little “refresher,” here we go:
Originally, Technology Design & Support Services (TDSS) was established to offer electro-acoustic & electronic design along with various support services to the audio manufacturing industry. Recent clients have been names you might be familiar with like NuForce, Optoma NuForce, Erato and NuPrime. In fact, it was while working with NuForce and then NuPrime that we got involved with providing their RMA warranty repairs and out-of-warranty repairs. That ultimately led to another new offering to the consumer market with respect to the Audio Equipment Upgrades that we now provide.
Actually, we kind-a “fell” into the upgrade business by happenstance because of doing the repairs on the older NuForce Reference Series amps like the Ref-9, 18 & 20. It’s no secret that while audiophiles loved them for their great sound, reasonable pricing, small size and high electrical efficiency, they weren’t always as reliable as most would have preferred. Well, after we took over the repair work from their facility in California, we felt that it was now our reputation on the line if customers continued to experience repeat failures after we had already repaired their unit. That happened a couple of times early on, so we decided real quick-like to see if we couldn’t help remedy the problems by doing a few things that the factory seemed to have maybe “overlooked.”
OK, so our efforts turned out to be rather fruitful, as our NuForce Ref Series Upgrades seemed to have significantly lowered the amps' relatively high failure rate... AND as luck would have it, significantly improve their sonic performance too as a little "side benefit" that we hadn't completely anticipated. Fast-forward to today and we now have 3 levels of upgrades to offer Reference Series owners. Frankly, they are all pretty “transformative” in that we have received nothing but rave reviews for our upgrades and to be honest, even we have been taken aback to have discovered the incredible latent potential that those amps always had. I know it sounds like sales hype, but I swear that NuForce themselves never really knew just how great the potential was behind their fundamental circuit designs. All we really managed to do was to simply “liberate” the things so that they could perform to their full potential… which has turned out to be nothing short of amazing.
You have to remember that year after year they were already winning awards worldwide for their great sound (at least for a while there). So I don’t think anybody ever suspected that they were capable of so much more. I know we didn’t – at least not until we heard the results for ourselves after our first little upgrade “experiment.” Now what we call our “Level-3 Upgrade” (that involves replacing the stock power supplies with new ones from a different manufacturer) has really opened the floodgates. I have heard a lot of good amps over my 40+ years in high-end audio, and to date I have never heard any amp that sounded much (if any) better at ANY price.
Oh, and before anybody starts thinking that this is all about TDSS promoting ourselves as a bunch of geniuses just to drum up business, let me reassure you that is NOT the case. Yeah, we’re pretty good at all things audio, but there is nothing that we do in any of our upgrades that is all that “proprietary” or takes some level of genius to figure out. In fact, other than changing the power supplies mentioned above, everything else we do is totally “passive” in nature as we do not replace ANY primary circuit components (like chips or caps, etc.) or tamper with the fundamental circuitry whatsoever.
Rather, everything we do a good DIY audio person that can solder could pretty much do on their own with the right materials and some (a good bit of) time. Well, I guess I need to limit that statement with respect to circuitry operating in the audio band. Above about 100KHz and especially into the Megahertz region things can start to get pretty ”squirrelly,” such that we would advise anyone attempting what we do on products that operate in those frequency regions (like Class-D/Switching amps and DACs) to be well versed in Radio Frequency (RF) Engineering principles and practices. I’m sure there are some radio guys out there that know exactly what I’m talking about. Anyway, if you don’t know what you are doing in those cases you can easily make matters worse rather than better.
Other than those special cases (which happen to be our areas of specialty) most of what we do in our basic Dynamic Resolution Recovery Technology (D.R.R.T. Upgrade) - a real savvy marketing name there, eh? - involves nothing more than the proper E-Field shielding and grounding of cables & wires, the magnetic shielding of certain components and mechanical vibration dampening. Oh,and we like to replace high current carrying cables with either our own laminated copper “bus-bar” construction or maybe Litz wire when the situation calls for it. Quite the opposite of many other upgrade providers though, we make no claims of using the equivalent of either proprietary materials, rocket science or some special “magic knowledge” that only we are privy to, etc.
As a general side note to the above and while I’m on a soapbox here, if you are one that happens to think that working in audio technology (especially that of providing equipment upgrades) requires the equivalent of a degree in rocket science, all I would say is that you might want to take a survey to see just how many “would be” NASA scientists & engineers opted to work in the audio field instead. Get my drift? Yeah, you have to have some brains and maybe a good bit of creativity and the ability to be innovative once in a while, but don’t let some of the so-called “gurus” out there fool ya with their pseudo-science “spiel.” The fact is, if you are any good at doing a thing whatsoever and you stay at it long enough, you’re liable to come up with a few good ideas along the way. DUH. Worse than that, the entire industry is replete with literal "hacks" that have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. Caveat Emptor.
So yes… the average DIY person could do the same stuff as we do in our upgrades themselves and maybe save a bit of money, but that’s assuming that even with the knowledge to do so that their time is free, or nearly so. Short of that, for folks that don’t have the knowledge & time or the inclination to obtain them, we believe that we offer the devout audiophile a pathway to extract significantly better performance from their gear at very reasonable prices. We think most would agree too after hearing the results for themselves and then comparing the cost thereof to what many are charging for other system tweaks like exotic cables and other more questionable products. If you factor that stuff in, then what we have to offer is a downright “steal” in comparison because unlike many tweaks and even complete components, the sonic improvements commonly delivered by our upgrades are generally anything but subtle. The one thing you can be rest assured of, seeing that our methods are all non-invasive and custom (read: expensive) aftermarket parts aren't being used, your component will always retain its original sonic signature. In fact, after a TDSS Upgrade you will not only be able to hear fine details in the music better than ever before, you'll also hear its intrinsic sonic signature better than ever before too - for good or bad. That's WHY NuPrime has actually given TDSS authorization to install our upgrades, such that doing so doesn't alter or void their original manufacturer's warranty. :hey:Any other companies out there interested in doing the same? It will likely help improve your overall sales? Just saying. :happy:
We offer the above info because we want potential customers to understand that at TDSS we are guided by science FIRST and our own hearing abilities second. In addition, we feel it is important to advise anybody and everybody with less than infinite resources to spend on pursuing their audio hobby quest to do the same. Otherwise, if you aren’t careful your golden retirement years may not end up being as “golden” as they could have/should have been. Besides, throwing away good money on “stupid stuff” is just plain stupid. We should all try to spend our money somewhat frugally, or else just give it to a good charity where at least somebody else will appreciate its value.
We would also like to take a moment to emphasize the fact that our D.R.R.T. Upgrade is equally effective on most any audio component, regardless of make or model (we don’t touch turntables though). We started out upgrading NuForce and then NuPrime products, and have had great success with them, but it seems that has been both a blessing and maybe a bit of a curse. How? Well… damn it… it seems we have been “type cast” in that regardless of how much we may jump up and down trying to tell the world that our upgrades work small wonders on virtually any piece of audio gear, frick’n everybody seems to think that all we do is upgrade NuForce & NuPrime gear. NOT!!!
OK, so to get out of that rut it looks like I’m going to have to do a little arm twisting here, as we need more work and we also believe that good folks such as yourselves need better sounding gear for less overall cost. You might not have an opinion about the former, but somebody please tell me that they DO NOT want a significantly better sounding system for not a lot of money? Do I hear silence? I thought so.
All right-y then. Besides NuForce & NuPrime gear, there are many other “high value” brands out there that would equally benefit from our D.R.R.T. Upgrade. Brands like Emotiva, Marantz, Dennon, Onkyo, NAD, ADCOM, Rotel, Yamaha, etc. Then there are the pro audio brands like Crown, Behringer & QSC that often find their way into audiophile systems. That being the case and the fact that we’re on a mission from God to help bring better sound to the world, we’d like to make a special offer to the good folks here at Audio Shark. So here’s the deal:
For the first 3 individuals from Audio Shark that contact us here at TDSS about the possibility of upgrading your NON NuForce/NuPrime component, we just might make you the ultimate deal. If your component is one of the above listed brands (or similar - not Krell, Cord, Levinson or the like) and a model that is fairly popular, we’ll install our D.R.R.T. Upgrade for FREE!!! The only “catch” is that you MUST agree to post an honest review of the results here on AS (or any Internet audio forum of your choice) within 30 days of having received your upgraded component back and functioning.
So, if “free” sounds good to you, then please take a moment to call or write. Also, for all AS members we will be happy to provide a substantial discount if you contact us by September 30th. Seeing that we have to price each component individually based on its own unique construction variables we can’t quote even a standard price, so what the discount would be is just as unpredictable. Nevertheless, you can take a look at the Upgrade Pricing we have listed on our website for the NuForce & NuPrime gear to get an idea. In most cases the price we’d normally be charging as our standard price would be closer to those than not. Obviously nobody is gonna pay $500.00 to upgrade a $300.00 component, so every consideration will be made to keep the cost as low as possible. All we ask in return is that you guys go out and help spread the word.
In closing, we are a service company so the very premise of our existence is to help folks by offering them solutions to and assistance with their needs. Since science & technology are our “things,” one of the services that we have to offer is technical guidance and advice. Therefore, it makes no difference whether or not you ever become a TDSS customer, if we can help answer your technical questions (especially here on AS) just let us know. We’d be happy to respond openly here for all to see, as maybe a certain technical question that you have is the same or similar to that of another AS member. Considering the possibility, then together it’s anybody’s guess as to how many folks may ultimately benefit by our discourse.
Oh, and it just so happens to be the case that (according to others) supposedly I have a certain “knack” for being able to explain complex technical stuff in terms that the non-technical person can understand. If so I'm guessing maybe that comes from years of providing Technical Support for other companies and/or maybe the fact that for several years I was the Technical Marketing Manager for NuForce wherein I wrote most of the product descriptions on their website. I dunno. Whatever the reason, I’m happy to help if I can, so feel free to ask and I’ll answer the best I can. In addition, if I post here more often then maybe my individual posts won’t have to be so darn long – sorry. Believe it or not, I'm not as narcissistic as this excessively long thing may seem to make me look. It's just that it is late Friday night, I can't sleep because all of the grand kids are here for the weekend making a ruckus, the office is the only place they aren't allowed... and I'm bored! :disbelief::lol:
In closing I look forward to hearing from and sharing with you folks here at AS in the future, so we’ll be standing by. Thanks for your time and bearing with me here all. Much happy listening, have a great weekend and…
Take care,
Bob Smith
President - TDSS
I have to apologize. It has been a long time since I first posted here at Audio Shark, and I should have been back long before now. I won’t bore you with the details, but the upshot is that we have had to deal with a lot of changes and issues over the last year or so. Mostly typical stuff like selling a house and moving, etc., but then along the way my stepdaughter suffered a recent health crisis too. Therefore, we spent a lot of time watching the three young grand kids (under 10) while their mom was (thankfully) recovering. Things seem to have been settling down lately though, so now we’re starting to get caught up on some “loose ends” that have needed tending to - like getting my butt back here to start participating as I should.
In any case, I just wanted to drop in and let folks know that we are still here and looking forward to helping in whatever ways we can. Seeing it has been so long and then on top of that I only made the one initial posting, many may not be aware of who we are or what we do here at TDSS. So as a little “refresher,” here we go:
Originally, Technology Design & Support Services (TDSS) was established to offer electro-acoustic & electronic design along with various support services to the audio manufacturing industry. Recent clients have been names you might be familiar with like NuForce, Optoma NuForce, Erato and NuPrime. In fact, it was while working with NuForce and then NuPrime that we got involved with providing their RMA warranty repairs and out-of-warranty repairs. That ultimately led to another new offering to the consumer market with respect to the Audio Equipment Upgrades that we now provide.
Actually, we kind-a “fell” into the upgrade business by happenstance because of doing the repairs on the older NuForce Reference Series amps like the Ref-9, 18 & 20. It’s no secret that while audiophiles loved them for their great sound, reasonable pricing, small size and high electrical efficiency, they weren’t always as reliable as most would have preferred. Well, after we took over the repair work from their facility in California, we felt that it was now our reputation on the line if customers continued to experience repeat failures after we had already repaired their unit. That happened a couple of times early on, so we decided real quick-like to see if we couldn’t help remedy the problems by doing a few things that the factory seemed to have maybe “overlooked.”
OK, so our efforts turned out to be rather fruitful, as our NuForce Ref Series Upgrades seemed to have significantly lowered the amps' relatively high failure rate... AND as luck would have it, significantly improve their sonic performance too as a little "side benefit" that we hadn't completely anticipated. Fast-forward to today and we now have 3 levels of upgrades to offer Reference Series owners. Frankly, they are all pretty “transformative” in that we have received nothing but rave reviews for our upgrades and to be honest, even we have been taken aback to have discovered the incredible latent potential that those amps always had. I know it sounds like sales hype, but I swear that NuForce themselves never really knew just how great the potential was behind their fundamental circuit designs. All we really managed to do was to simply “liberate” the things so that they could perform to their full potential… which has turned out to be nothing short of amazing.
You have to remember that year after year they were already winning awards worldwide for their great sound (at least for a while there). So I don’t think anybody ever suspected that they were capable of so much more. I know we didn’t – at least not until we heard the results for ourselves after our first little upgrade “experiment.” Now what we call our “Level-3 Upgrade” (that involves replacing the stock power supplies with new ones from a different manufacturer) has really opened the floodgates. I have heard a lot of good amps over my 40+ years in high-end audio, and to date I have never heard any amp that sounded much (if any) better at ANY price.
Oh, and before anybody starts thinking that this is all about TDSS promoting ourselves as a bunch of geniuses just to drum up business, let me reassure you that is NOT the case. Yeah, we’re pretty good at all things audio, but there is nothing that we do in any of our upgrades that is all that “proprietary” or takes some level of genius to figure out. In fact, other than changing the power supplies mentioned above, everything else we do is totally “passive” in nature as we do not replace ANY primary circuit components (like chips or caps, etc.) or tamper with the fundamental circuitry whatsoever.
Rather, everything we do a good DIY audio person that can solder could pretty much do on their own with the right materials and some (a good bit of) time. Well, I guess I need to limit that statement with respect to circuitry operating in the audio band. Above about 100KHz and especially into the Megahertz region things can start to get pretty ”squirrelly,” such that we would advise anyone attempting what we do on products that operate in those frequency regions (like Class-D/Switching amps and DACs) to be well versed in Radio Frequency (RF) Engineering principles and practices. I’m sure there are some radio guys out there that know exactly what I’m talking about. Anyway, if you don’t know what you are doing in those cases you can easily make matters worse rather than better.
Other than those special cases (which happen to be our areas of specialty) most of what we do in our basic Dynamic Resolution Recovery Technology (D.R.R.T. Upgrade) - a real savvy marketing name there, eh? - involves nothing more than the proper E-Field shielding and grounding of cables & wires, the magnetic shielding of certain components and mechanical vibration dampening. Oh,and we like to replace high current carrying cables with either our own laminated copper “bus-bar” construction or maybe Litz wire when the situation calls for it. Quite the opposite of many other upgrade providers though, we make no claims of using the equivalent of either proprietary materials, rocket science or some special “magic knowledge” that only we are privy to, etc.
As a general side note to the above and while I’m on a soapbox here, if you are one that happens to think that working in audio technology (especially that of providing equipment upgrades) requires the equivalent of a degree in rocket science, all I would say is that you might want to take a survey to see just how many “would be” NASA scientists & engineers opted to work in the audio field instead. Get my drift? Yeah, you have to have some brains and maybe a good bit of creativity and the ability to be innovative once in a while, but don’t let some of the so-called “gurus” out there fool ya with their pseudo-science “spiel.” The fact is, if you are any good at doing a thing whatsoever and you stay at it long enough, you’re liable to come up with a few good ideas along the way. DUH. Worse than that, the entire industry is replete with literal "hacks" that have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. Caveat Emptor.
So yes… the average DIY person could do the same stuff as we do in our upgrades themselves and maybe save a bit of money, but that’s assuming that even with the knowledge to do so that their time is free, or nearly so. Short of that, for folks that don’t have the knowledge & time or the inclination to obtain them, we believe that we offer the devout audiophile a pathway to extract significantly better performance from their gear at very reasonable prices. We think most would agree too after hearing the results for themselves and then comparing the cost thereof to what many are charging for other system tweaks like exotic cables and other more questionable products. If you factor that stuff in, then what we have to offer is a downright “steal” in comparison because unlike many tweaks and even complete components, the sonic improvements commonly delivered by our upgrades are generally anything but subtle. The one thing you can be rest assured of, seeing that our methods are all non-invasive and custom (read: expensive) aftermarket parts aren't being used, your component will always retain its original sonic signature. In fact, after a TDSS Upgrade you will not only be able to hear fine details in the music better than ever before, you'll also hear its intrinsic sonic signature better than ever before too - for good or bad. That's WHY NuPrime has actually given TDSS authorization to install our upgrades, such that doing so doesn't alter or void their original manufacturer's warranty. :hey:Any other companies out there interested in doing the same? It will likely help improve your overall sales? Just saying. :happy:
We offer the above info because we want potential customers to understand that at TDSS we are guided by science FIRST and our own hearing abilities second. In addition, we feel it is important to advise anybody and everybody with less than infinite resources to spend on pursuing their audio hobby quest to do the same. Otherwise, if you aren’t careful your golden retirement years may not end up being as “golden” as they could have/should have been. Besides, throwing away good money on “stupid stuff” is just plain stupid. We should all try to spend our money somewhat frugally, or else just give it to a good charity where at least somebody else will appreciate its value.
We would also like to take a moment to emphasize the fact that our D.R.R.T. Upgrade is equally effective on most any audio component, regardless of make or model (we don’t touch turntables though). We started out upgrading NuForce and then NuPrime products, and have had great success with them, but it seems that has been both a blessing and maybe a bit of a curse. How? Well… damn it… it seems we have been “type cast” in that regardless of how much we may jump up and down trying to tell the world that our upgrades work small wonders on virtually any piece of audio gear, frick’n everybody seems to think that all we do is upgrade NuForce & NuPrime gear. NOT!!!
OK, so to get out of that rut it looks like I’m going to have to do a little arm twisting here, as we need more work and we also believe that good folks such as yourselves need better sounding gear for less overall cost. You might not have an opinion about the former, but somebody please tell me that they DO NOT want a significantly better sounding system for not a lot of money? Do I hear silence? I thought so.
All right-y then. Besides NuForce & NuPrime gear, there are many other “high value” brands out there that would equally benefit from our D.R.R.T. Upgrade. Brands like Emotiva, Marantz, Dennon, Onkyo, NAD, ADCOM, Rotel, Yamaha, etc. Then there are the pro audio brands like Crown, Behringer & QSC that often find their way into audiophile systems. That being the case and the fact that we’re on a mission from God to help bring better sound to the world, we’d like to make a special offer to the good folks here at Audio Shark. So here’s the deal:
For the first 3 individuals from Audio Shark that contact us here at TDSS about the possibility of upgrading your NON NuForce/NuPrime component, we just might make you the ultimate deal. If your component is one of the above listed brands (or similar - not Krell, Cord, Levinson or the like) and a model that is fairly popular, we’ll install our D.R.R.T. Upgrade for FREE!!! The only “catch” is that you MUST agree to post an honest review of the results here on AS (or any Internet audio forum of your choice) within 30 days of having received your upgraded component back and functioning.
So, if “free” sounds good to you, then please take a moment to call or write. Also, for all AS members we will be happy to provide a substantial discount if you contact us by September 30th. Seeing that we have to price each component individually based on its own unique construction variables we can’t quote even a standard price, so what the discount would be is just as unpredictable. Nevertheless, you can take a look at the Upgrade Pricing we have listed on our website for the NuForce & NuPrime gear to get an idea. In most cases the price we’d normally be charging as our standard price would be closer to those than not. Obviously nobody is gonna pay $500.00 to upgrade a $300.00 component, so every consideration will be made to keep the cost as low as possible. All we ask in return is that you guys go out and help spread the word.
In closing, we are a service company so the very premise of our existence is to help folks by offering them solutions to and assistance with their needs. Since science & technology are our “things,” one of the services that we have to offer is technical guidance and advice. Therefore, it makes no difference whether or not you ever become a TDSS customer, if we can help answer your technical questions (especially here on AS) just let us know. We’d be happy to respond openly here for all to see, as maybe a certain technical question that you have is the same or similar to that of another AS member. Considering the possibility, then together it’s anybody’s guess as to how many folks may ultimately benefit by our discourse.
Oh, and it just so happens to be the case that (according to others) supposedly I have a certain “knack” for being able to explain complex technical stuff in terms that the non-technical person can understand. If so I'm guessing maybe that comes from years of providing Technical Support for other companies and/or maybe the fact that for several years I was the Technical Marketing Manager for NuForce wherein I wrote most of the product descriptions on their website. I dunno. Whatever the reason, I’m happy to help if I can, so feel free to ask and I’ll answer the best I can. In addition, if I post here more often then maybe my individual posts won’t have to be so darn long – sorry. Believe it or not, I'm not as narcissistic as this excessively long thing may seem to make me look. It's just that it is late Friday night, I can't sleep because all of the grand kids are here for the weekend making a ruckus, the office is the only place they aren't allowed... and I'm bored! :disbelief::lol:
In closing I look forward to hearing from and sharing with you folks here at AS in the future, so we’ll be standing by. Thanks for your time and bearing with me here all. Much happy listening, have a great weekend and…
Take care,
Bob Smith
President - TDSS
