Nord One Up Ncore NC500 amps, Class D ready for prime time .....

George

That would be better answered by Joe as he has owned several pass amps including now along with the Nords. I have never owned a Pass or any other Class A amp.
 
Jack said:
Devg

I will try to find them tomorrow and give them a try. I think I have had this pair at least fifteen years. I use to run them between a Classe' CD player and a Classe' integrated.

Mike

Still haven't tried the Nord with anything but the KO's. For a month with the Sparkos and now for about two weeks with the SI's. I have tried both configurations with the W4S STP-SE and the Modwright LS-100. With the Sparkos I preferred the W4S and with the SI's the Modwright's tubes. I plan to swap the Nord and the Nuprime ST-10 out this weekend and see how the Nord does with the Spatial's with the SI's in place. When I tried Joe's with the Sparko's and the Rev B buffer it was much better on the KO's than the Spatial's. I suspect the SI's will be a better match for the Spatial's. Either way the Nord is a really good amp at a fair price. If you are still thinking about the stereo version for upstairs I don't think you will be losing anything over the mono's except an extra power cord. Still have to decide which amp sounds best with which speaker but either one of them beat out the W4S mAMPS which I just sold. Another contender maybe worth exploring is the Digital Amplifier Companies' "Cherry" amps. Like Nuprime they are using their own proprietary Class D module. They seem to be very popular amongst the members on AC. Tommy uses transformers like Nuprime rather than SMPS.

http://www.cherryamp.com/classic-cherry-amplifiers
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Jack, Have you tried swapping amps around, Nord with Spatials, ST-10 on the KOs?
 
The swap has been in place for about a week. The two amps are actually pretty similar voicing wise with the SI op amps in place. With the Nord on the Spatial their is an initial perceived increase in the bass region but over time it becomes less obvious. I suspect it will come down to synergy with the preamp in use as their is something about the Nuprime combo together. Either one would be easy to live with.
 
Thanks Jack. Does the Nord's higher power output compared to the ST-10 play any role on either speakers? Do the monos have any soundstaging advantage over the ST-10?
 
With the two speakers both being over 90 db the power difference between the two is not significant for me. Also my Nord is also a stereo amp. The monos I had earlier were Joe's. Also the room the Spatial's are in is at least twice as big as my Music room if you consider the fact that their is an four foot opening that opens from the Family Room into the Kitchen/Breakfast Room. To my ears and with the KO's the Sparkos op amps are better with the STP-SE and the SI op amps are a better match with the Modwright's tubes.
 
Just found this thread, I have the Acoustic Imagery Atsah 500 with the same boards, they were supposed to come out with changeable op amps? Anybody have these amps also? Have you tried different op amps?
 
You can not change the Op amps in these they are fitted with Hypex input buffer boards. They have surface mount soldered LM4562 op amps. The same spec as our standard amplifier. You would need to change the complete buffer board.
 
Not sure of the layout of your amps but maybe you would be able to fit Nord buffers have a chat with Colin at Nord.
 
colmon said:
Not sure of the layout of your amps but maybe you would be able to fit Nord buffers have a chat with Colin at Nord.
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I think that's the reason Nord offers the input board as a separate item, upgrade the Atsahs.
 
Yes I was looking at the website, looking at the photo it seems I could, which I cannot upload until I have 10 posts
I am sure it would void the warranty. Has anyone compared the different op amps to the Ncores standard ones
 

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boggit said:
You can not change the Op amps in these they are fitted with Hypex input buffer boards. They have surface mount soldered LM4562 op amps. The same spec as our standard amplifier. You would need to change the complete buffer board.
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Has anyone tried replacing the input boards with the ones you sell, would the fit in the 500's?
 
Nords buffers are specifically for the NC500 modules.
I have Nord NC500 monoblocks with their own buffers and have tried 4 op amps in my buffers. Standard LM4562, Burson V5, Sonic Imagery and Sparkos.
I originally preferred the Burson but then tried the Sonic Imagery which sound best to me.
Obviously a lot would depend on the rest of your system and own preferences.
 
I have a pair of Nord One UP NC500MB NC500 Mono Blocks in silver for sale, if anyone is interested. About three months old with less than 10 hours. Comes with Sonic Imagery 994 built-in, and a Sparkos 3602 dual op-amp for future rolling. I bought them purely out of curiosity, but they're just sitting on my rack and not getting used. They're not even burned-in yet. Let me know if you're interested.
 
jt

Did you ever e-mail Colin directly and ask him if you could change out the buffer boards as he sells a standard version of the NC-500 amps that are just like the AI's. Otherwise you can just buy majnun's Nords and sell the AI amps.
 
Jack,
Yes I did contact Colin and he said they would fit, so I will probably just order the boards with the SI op amps if I cant
come to an agreed price on above
 
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