ok so im not going with the nuforce junk,and i happened to find some emotiva gear that seems interesting,first theres the TA-100
preamp/tuner/dac/amp which seems to good to be true but there it is,and at a great price so im thinking of trying that.Are emotiva equipments any good? I also found some Parasound gear thats pretty reasonable also and could go with them also,are they any good? what im trying to do is go a different route than the conventional avr route since i wont need alot of what an avr offers,so i just need dac,amp and maybe a preamp.for 2 channel full range audiophile goodness...
Emotiva is generally pretty good, even really good stuff. They do get some (deserved) criticism, they are not the value that they used to be, they have had a few problematic pieces of gear, they have had a few really delayed product releases, and I don't understand their short life cycle on some stuff.
I personally own an Emotiva USP-1 Pre-amp (it is great!) and an XDA-1 DAC (it is great, it does have a design flaw, with how the digi volume was implemented, but that flaw is not a concern for me and how I use it, and it also means that I got it cheap!).
Parasound is also good stuff at good pricing. There have been several people with problems on the Halo P5 pre-amp, so steer clear of that at all costs! But, the classic line and the z line are great at good prices.
I personally own a Parasound 1206 Power Amp (it's like 20 years old, and it is a beast!), and a zCD (great CD player, small, and lots of flexibility).