For Christmas I got myself a pair of Ref9s.
After listening for a couple of weeks, I am very favourably impressed. Superb bass, extremely fast and transparent, even for mid and high notes. Great for vocals, where it seems to help to distinguish different voices (tried some of the Eagles and BeeGees harmonies on DVD - where the guys are sharing a single mike). There seems to be indeed a touch of highs gone, but not disturbingly so. Especially at louder levels, bass is very lean, immediate or punchy. My ears like it a lot, so I will definitely keep them. Great bargain for 2500 US$ - moreover, if it wasn't for my Home Cinema LFE set-up, I could probably get rid of my REL Storm sub! (Although.... bass management of the Denons is quite good...)
I am using my Denon AVC-A1SR as a pre-amp, with DNM interconnects.
I haven't experimented yet with speaker cables or mains cables.
My next improvement is to try out NuForce's P-8 pre-amp for direct analog connection to my Denon DVD-A1XV.
By the way, find some interesting NuForce discussions on the forum below:
http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/viewforum.php?f=83&sid=b648d316e4ed677ff052533c8a69c42e
Finally, great service and support from NuForce salesteam. They shipped it for free to Asia.