a.wayne
Well-known member
Did you notice distortion increases as the power level drops , i wonder what it looks like at .5 and 1watt ...
Class-D Mike, you never answered if there's an output filter ..?
Another Hypex NC-500 based amp unveiled
- Thread starter Mivera Audio
- Start date
Did you notice distortion increases as the power level drops , i wonder what it looks like at .5 and 1watt ...
Class-D Mike, you never answered if there's an output filter ..?
Mivera Audio
Banned
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2016
- Messages
- 414
- Thread Author
- #62
Why don't we look at the NC-500 datasheet instead. If this doesn't cut it I recommend a Kondo.
Attachments
a.wayne
Well-known member
Does the NC500 have an output filter and is the NC500 a better amp than the NC1200 ..?
Jack
Active member
Damn, I guess my hearing must be as bad as Joe and MikeCh's as I own two Class D amps and had Joe's Nord's here for a while when he way breaking in his Ayre gear and all of them are good amps. Unless I am delusional I think the rest of my system is good enough to hear the difference. Whether or not you like them in your system with your speakers is a personal preference just like any tube or Class A/AB amp. There are good amps and crap in all of the categories and believe it or not the cost of the amp is not the deciding factor. The companies don't have money back guaranties any more than Pass, Solution, Hegel, Air Tight, Devialet or any of the other high dollar favorites. You buy, you try and then you sell at a loss like with the "big boy reviewer favorites." There are several of the "board favorites" selling Class D amps for huge profits and nobody jumps on them. Those "favorites" started out as the little guy too.
I was knocked for loving my Job amps, same with my Nords. Both play well above their price point. I like 'em. And for the money? Holy cow! Money does not grow on trees and some guys are lucky to have choices like these, especially me. :blush:
a.wayne
Well-known member
Hello Jack,
Not discussing or disputing preference , just trying to get a hold on Mike's Hyperbole , saying something blows another away peaks my interest , but i do need to get a feel as to how one arrives at such conclusions and why .
mike claimed he had $1000 into his units and then admits they cant be purchased at that price, he then claims superior sound to Devialets , then suggest to hear them we should "Chip roll " as they may not sound good out the box.
One member supposedly have the Nords but no word on comparisons yet and lately Im trying to find out if the NC500 have an output filter ...
Smoke amd mirrors rule ...
Not discussing or disputing preference , just trying to get a hold on Mike's Hyperbole , saying something blows another away peaks my interest , but i do need to get a feel as to how one arrives at such conclusions and why .
mike claimed he had $1000 into his units and then admits they cant be purchased at that price, he then claims superior sound to Devialets , then suggest to hear them we should "Chip roll " as they may not sound good out the box.
One member supposedly have the Nords but no word on comparisons yet and lately Im trying to find out if the NC500 have an output filter ...
Smoke amd mirrors rule ...
a.wayne
Well-known member
Cant See why , you like what you like , no dispute there .....
Mivera Audio
Banned
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2016
- Messages
- 414
- Thread Author
- #68
The White paper from Bruno explains how they work far better than I can. Besides unless you are an engineer who's intimately aware how the inner workings of class D amps function, why does this even matter? Simply buy the Devialet's instead if you like their marketing buzzwords better. Then when you end up selling them 2 months later, you'll find out you could have bought 2 sets of Nord monos for the amount you lost in resale value on the Devialet
Jack
Active member
a.wayne
I don't do "smoke and mirrors" or hyperbole I just use my ears like I have for over 45 years in this hobby. I also don't do advertising and marketing hype from the "big 2" audio publications. I had Joe's Nord amps in my two systems for three weeks in front of the Nola KO's and the Spatial M3 Turbo's. They are really good amps for a more than fair price. In fact of the more than half dozen amps I have tried with the KO's they may be the best top to bottom. That was not true with the Spatials so it is all system dependent. As to Mike's $1100 home built amp, I assume he got the NC500 modules from another OEM and then built his own input buffer board. Colin of Nord is currently using a buffer board that appears to have been designed for the most part by the owner of Sonic Imagery who published the board design on DIY Audio. As of today the stereo version of the amp is selling for 1309 British pounds complete. As the input buffer board is socketed you can change out the pair of Op Amps to find whatever sound you want.
As to the Devialet, I have never heard or seen one but Joe did own one and sold it pretty quickly. He thinks the Nord amp section is better than the Devialet amps section and I will take his word for it.
Another option if you are interested is the Nuprime ST-10, reviewed by Stephen Stone of TAS. It uses the NuForce version of Class D but uses Toroidal Transformers instead of a SMPS.
I don't do "smoke and mirrors" or hyperbole I just use my ears like I have for over 45 years in this hobby. I also don't do advertising and marketing hype from the "big 2" audio publications. I had Joe's Nord amps in my two systems for three weeks in front of the Nola KO's and the Spatial M3 Turbo's. They are really good amps for a more than fair price. In fact of the more than half dozen amps I have tried with the KO's they may be the best top to bottom. That was not true with the Spatials so it is all system dependent. As to Mike's $1100 home built amp, I assume he got the NC500 modules from another OEM and then built his own input buffer board. Colin of Nord is currently using a buffer board that appears to have been designed for the most part by the owner of Sonic Imagery who published the board design on DIY Audio. As of today the stereo version of the amp is selling for 1309 British pounds complete. As the input buffer board is socketed you can change out the pair of Op Amps to find whatever sound you want.
As to the Devialet, I have never heard or seen one but Joe did own one and sold it pretty quickly. He thinks the Nord amp section is better than the Devialet amps section and I will take his word for it.
Another option if you are interested is the Nuprime ST-10, reviewed by Stephen Stone of TAS. It uses the NuForce version of Class D but uses Toroidal Transformers instead of a SMPS.
Mivera Audio
Banned
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2016
- Messages
- 414
- Thread Author
- #70
You have the details a bit mixed up. I've been building Hypex based amps for 9 years. I have an OEM account with Hypex. I introduced the modules to DIYaudio back in September. Colin from Nord was reading what I was saying about them and decided to build his own version. By this time I had already experimented with several different buffer designs using discrete opamps, as well as worked with Richard from Sonic imagery on a buffer design. Colin was originally going to just use the stock Hypex OEM IC opamp based buffer board like Acoustic imagery uses in their NC-500 based amp, but I told him that would be lame, and talked him into building a board that has sockets on it so you can "roll" opamps and tune the input buffers to individual tastes. He thought the idea was wonderful.
So I gave him a parts list, links to suppliers where certain components can be found, as well as recommended discrete opamps to try that I already had experimented with. He built the 1st gen board with his brother. It was basically based on the OEM Hypex board, only the components scrambled around. He had the PCB's fabbed at a place in Belgium, and they finally arrived. He soldered the parts into the board, and was very happy with what he heard from the Sparko's and the Bursons. I hadn't told him about the Sil994's yet at this time as I knew it took a more complex board design to stabilize them. He sold a bunch of them along with the amp Joe bought and contacted via PM on diyaudio to thank me for the success. He asked how he could repay me and I said just send me a pair of your boards, and I'll evaluate them against my latest board design. So he express shipped me a pair of boards. I got them, and hooked them up with the Sparko opamps. To be honest I was dissapointed, and heard a faint hiss is the background that wasn't present in my board design. I'm talking about a hiss that's very acceptable to class A/B standards, but not for amp modules that have an SNR of -135db.
Then I tried the SIL994. It was very noisy and unstable. So I reported my honest feedback on diyaudio,, and it resulted in an uproar from many people. So at this point I told him about the Sil994's and that he should redesign his board to accommodate them, and lower the noise floor with the other opamps as well. So he contacted Richard at Sonic imagery labs and he shared with him the circuit he came up with when he had my boards in his lab several months earlier. So this is how the "revision c" board came about. I have been urging him to have them measured to confirm that they match the performance of my Sil994 based board. But he got the boards back from the pcb place, soldered the parts on, sat back on the couch, busted into a case of beer, and decided they were good enough. So I still have no idea how they compare to these boards:
a.wayne
Well-known member
Thanks for the reply Jack, i will take a look at the board design on DIY, BTW you have Shown us how to get Hyperbole Class-D Mike to actually respond to questions..
a.wayne
Well-known member
You have the details a bit mixed up. I've been building Hypex based amps for 9 years. I have an OEM account with Hypex. I introduced the modules to DIYaudio back in September. Colin from Nord was reading what I was saying about them and decided to build his own version. By this time I had already experimented with several different buffer designs using discrete opamps, as well as worked with Richard from Sonic imagery on a buffer design. Colin was originally going to just use the stock Hypex OEM IC opamp based buffer board like Acoustic imagery uses in their NC-500 based amp, but I told him that would be lame, and talked him into building a board that has sockets on it so you can "roll" opamps and tune the input buffers to individual tastes. He thought the idea was wonderful.
So I gave him a parts list, links to suppliers where certain components can be found, as well as recommended discrete opamps to try that I already had experimented with. He built the 1st gen board with his brother. It was basically based on the OEM Hypex board, only the components scrambled around. He had the PCB's fabbed at a place in Belgium, and they finally arrived. He soldered the parts into the board, and was very happy with what he heard from the Sparko's and the Bursons. I hadn't told him about the Sil994's yet at this time as I knew it took a more complex board design to stabilize them. He sold a bunch of them along with the amp Joe bought and contacted via PM on diyaudio to thank me for the success. He asked how he could repay me and I said just send me a pair of your boards, and I'll evaluate them against my latest board design. So he express shipped me a pair of boards. I got them, and hooked them up with the Sparko opamps. To be honest I was dissapointed, and heard a faint hiss is the background that wasn't present in my board design. I'm talking about a hiss that's very acceptable to class A/B standards, but not for amp modules that have an SNR of -135db.
Then I tried the SIL994. It was very noisy and unstable. So I reported my honest feedback on diyaudio,, and it resulted in an uproar from many people. So at this point I told him about the Sil994's and that he should redesign his board to accommodate them, and lower the noise floor with the other opamps as well. So he contacted Richard at Sonic imagery labs and he shared with him the circuit he came up with when he had my boards in his lab several months earlier. So this is how the "revision c" board came about. I have been urging him to have them measured to confirm that they match the performance of my Sil994 based board. But he got the boards back from the pcb place, soldered the parts on, sat back on the couch, busted into a case of beer, and decided they were good enough. So I still have no idea how they compare to these boards:
Which version did you compare to the Devialets and you did say the NC500 has no output filters ..... Which is not correct
Mivera Audio
Banned
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2016
- Messages
- 414
- Thread Author
- #74
It was a different board altogether. But all of them are better. Even the stock IC opamp based Hypex OEM input board. My first comparison with the Devialet combined with the Resonessence labs Mirus was with that board.
No I didn't say that. I said read the white paper.
Welcome to the forum sstalker, thank you for joining.
a.wayne
Well-known member
Mivera Audio
Banned
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2016
- Messages
- 414
- Thread Author
- #77
Yes the NC-500's, like all of the Hypex amps, have an input stage, and an output stage. The difference with the NC-500's is they don't come with the input stage. You can order a cheap IC opamp based board from them if you don't want to design your own. By designing an input board that runs in class A, it turns the amp into a hybrid as well.
But at the end of the day the only thing that really matters is how they sound. If you're a measurement guy, I don't think the graphs will disappoint either.
a.wayne
Well-known member
What mods are there for the UcD and NC400 modules ..? Linear supply or Hypex psu module ... ?
As to measurements , as much as JA had explained and given me his opinion on this , I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around this bad a graph..
Mind you , this is from the best class-d amp in dah Universe ...
As to measurements , as much as JA had explained and given me his opinion on this , I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around this bad a graph..
Mind you , this is from the best class-d amp in dah Universe ...
Attachments
Mivera Audio
Banned
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2016
- Messages
- 414
- Thread Author
- #79
The OEM versions of the UCD amps have an option to bypass the onboard input stage. The NC-400's are made for the DIY market, and there's no way to bypass the input stage. You can use a linear power supply if you want, but they don't preform near as good as the SMPS's that were designed specifically for them. They used to sell linear supplies before they came out with far better SMPS's. Theta uses linear supplies with them, but it's really only to be different, and make the amps big and heavy. Bruno even said him self that Theta's linear supplies don't preform as good as his SMPS.
Some of the comments here about the "much better components" are referring to the input stage. Theta uses the onboard IC opamp based input stage on the NC1200.
http://onahighernote.com/blog/productfaq/linear-versus-switching-psu-in-mola-mola-kaluga/
a.wayne
Well-known member
How are you getting around the SMPS noise , specifically the AC line ...? Theta maybe using linear for such a reason ..