[roscoeiii]

I am not spreading anything. I am just saying what I hear from SWPS. If you do not hear the electronic glare of SWPS, then you have no worries.

Uh-oh, is whatever causes doug s to use w's where they aren't usually used contagious??? We might need an AC quarantine before this spreads to the general pubwic.

[OzarkTom]

You don't have to work for Hypex to have an open mind....

Since you are positively so sure that the Ncores are that great, I will gladly pay you $100 plus shipping here and to your place, to let me borrow yours for a weekend.   

[OzarkTom]

You guys are helping me win my bet this thread doessn't make it to 50 posts. Carry on.

What other amps should we talk about? Let's make it to at least 50.

I emailed Theta and their new Prometheus Class D amps has been delayed due to their new pre-amp being designed.

And Mola-Mola will be showing their new line in Munich next week. Here is a list of all the vendors showing in Munich. Is anyone going to Munich?

http://www.highendsociety.de/english/presse/marken.php

[medium jim]

OzarkTom:

Mola Mola is Ncore, Bruno....probably won't get to 50 before it get's totally binned....

Jim

[OzarkTom]

OzarkTom:

Mola Mola is Ncore, Bruno....

Jim

I know. Just trying to keep everyone updated in case they want Ncore finished, but not DIY.

[medium jim]

And we all thought Rclark was the real cheer-leader....

Jim

[Occam]

I have owned three amps with switching power supplies, and they all sounded 30-40% better running on a battery.

I would buy an Ncore in a heartbeat if it ran off of battery.

Tom,

I don't think anything would preclude you from running the NCores off your own battery pack. The output stage runs off bipolar rails between 35-75v and the signal section from bipolar between 16-25v.

Vinnie from RedWine Audio demonstrated his excellent sounding  Class AB amplifier at the NY Waldorf Astoria show that uses a LiPo battery pack providing +- 52v rails. I wouldn't know the economic viability of such a product, but Vinnie could certainly provide an appropriate battery supply for the Ncores.

FWIW,
Paul

[TomS]

What other amps should we talk about? Let's make it to at least 50.

I emailed Theta and their new Prometheus Class D amps has been delayed due to their new pre-amp being designed.

And Mola-Mola will be showing their new line in Munich next week. Here is a list of all the vendors showing in Munich. Is anyone going to Munich?

http://www.highendsociety.de/english/presse/marken.php

I don't know what other commercial offerings are in the wings, but I'd look for a lot of the powered speaker flavor in the future, like Grimm. Integrated systems and such too. It's early.

In terms of the title "Class D vs the rest", I've had, among others, mostly class A for the last 5 years or so, with the AB ones biased heavy to class A for the first few watts:

McCormack DNA-500 (AB)
Joule VZN100 Musicwood mono OTL's (A - tube)
Odyssey Extreme SE Glass Ceiling mono's (AB)
Bella Extreme 3205 (I think AB - tube)
DIY First Watt F3 (A)
DIY First Watt F4 mono's (A)
DIY First Watt F5's (A)
DIY Pass Labs Aleph J (A)
Bryston 7BSST2 mono's (AB)
Atma-Sphere M60 OTL mono's (A - tube)

I've auditioned at various times class D from NuForce, Channel Islands, Wyred4Sound, and a couple others I forget. I never got to hear a DAC Cherry but I'm sure it's really good also. I'll spare the hyperbole but from memory I doubt any of the ones I've heard would fare well vs the NCores. There's just no way for me to tell because I don't have them all in the same system at the same time. I didn't buy any of them so I suppose that says something.

I've built various class A amps since Nelson Pass's first A40 from Audio Amateur many years ago and these amps do it for me in ways good class A amps do but there is more there, with no harshness or syrup, no softening at extremes, etc. They get it all.

I just have to wear a blindfold to get over what's inside because I can't get my engineering head around why they sound as good as they do, lightweights, tiny heatsinks, SMT parts, SMPS's and all

Are we at 50 yet?

[OzarkTom]

Tom,

I don't think anything would preclude you from running the NCores off your own battery pack. The output stage runs off bipolar rails between 35-75v and the signal section from bipolar between 16-25v.

Vinnie from RedWine Audio demonstrated his excellent sounding  Class AB amplifier at the NY Waldorf Astoria show that uses a LiPo battery pack providing +- 52v rails. I wouldn't know the economic viability of such a product, but Vinnie could certainly provide an appropriate battery supply for the Ncores.

FWIW,
Paul

I wish I knew more about batteries, Paul, maybe Vinnie will come to the rescue. Vinnie could make a lot of money here on this Ncore battery project.

[OzarkTom]

I've built various class A amps since Nelson Pass's first A40 from Audio Amateur many years ago and these amps do it for me in ways good class A amps do but there is more there, with no harshness or syrup, no softening at extremes, etc. They get it all.

I just have to wear a blindfold to get over what's inside because I can't get my engineering head around why they sound as good as they do, lightweights, tiny heatsinks, SMT parts, SMPS's and all

Do you want to make $100?

[TomS]

Do you want to make $100?

Sorry no, I've been amp-less for a couple months and am not nearly as generous as Jason. I've contributed XLR adapters to his tour, that's about it.

BTW, this sort of thing should be PM as it doesn't contribute to the thread, and it adds fluff towards the 50 posts.

[TomS]

Do you want to make $100?

Darn, you baited me perfectly. I posted #50 

Now maybe some one will talk about their experiences with various good class D vs others (A, AB, H, etc.).

[walkern]

I work for an old fashioned brick and mortar audio shop (mid fi stuff) and our Anthem rep stopped by a few weeks ago with the new Anthem M1 amp (mono, 1000 wpc).  About 2/3 of the VERY small chassis innards were devoted to power supply, and the rep swears that a pair of those amps sound much better than his former reference (Anthem P2) that was a linear supplied Class A/B amp.  Unfortunately he only had one amp with him (a clear topped demo), and listening to mono wasn't gonna fly... so I don't know from personal experience if the Class D amp is as terrific as the rep says.  Still, it was encouraging to see a company with long roots in the Class A/B amp territory venturing into Class D.

[kevinh]

If I tried ncore it would have to be a nIght and day difference from the class d I had in 97 cause that shit was sad.

How would a PC and monitor from 1997 compare to a CPU & monitor purchased today?

Or a transistor amp from 1970 vs a ss amp from 85?

Technology changes....

[kevinh]

$1900 by the time you get the Ncores assembled in cases is a great value? And what will be the resale value in a couple of years?

People generally don't do DIY for resale value and there could be differences between DIY Ncores dur to things like the RFI performance of the enclsure and the user supplier wiring.

That is why 90% of the Hypex UcD sales were to OEM's selling finished product.


I haven't heard the Ncores. I am fascinated that see good DIY amp builders who were using Pass Class A designs as their amps prefer the Ncores.

These guys have spent a good amount of time measuring as well as listening to class a as well as these ncore

YMMV

I haven't heard the Ncore and won't be in the market for at least a year

[kevinh]

Why don't they just put a good linear power supply in it ?

The designer of the module designed a PS to work specifically with this module, his opinion is thst the ps he designed would work as wel/better than a linear supply.

[Russell Dawkins]

Before the net, there has been several great products with unheard performance over the yaers. The dealers just never told you about them. The Musical Fidelity A1 at $375 retail is just one of them. If you heard one of these in your present system today, you would be shocked. They are selling used on Ebay in the $300 range. Not bad since these were made 25 years ago.

Interesting you would single out the Musical Fidelity A1. I still clearly remember hearing the A1 for the first time. I was in retail 20 years ago and the A1 sounded so much better in certain respects than all the other amps we were selling (I remember orchestral string sections sounding great) that I doubted what I was hearing and thought there might be something else at play - perhaps large amounts of even order added harmonics such as tubes tend to provide - and I put the experience on my mental back burner for further consideration. We only ever had the one amp, so I never got the opportunity to double check. Other amps we had on hand for comparison included YBA, Sugden, Carver and the like.

When Stereophile did the issue with the photos of the Krell and the Cary amps and the caption "If one of these is right, the other is wrong!" I was reminded of the Musical Fidelity A1.

I am guessing hearing the Ncores will provide a similar epiphany, from all the comments.

[Brian Cheney]

I will comment on this thread in order to relate my experiences with Class D designs to date.

Four years ago I had several high quality switching amps in my system (brand names are irrelevant, neither is currently available).  One was very clear and bright sounding, but gave me listening fatigue after about an hour.  I retired it in favor of another amp (also in the 200W/ch power range like my first switching amp), which I was predisposed to like because it was manufactured by a friend of mine and had good reviews.  My initial impression was that the amp was very listenable, natural, detailed but not overly so.  I was about to call my friend  (to complement him) when I noticed I felt rather queasy.  After a few more minutes I became quite ill and turned off the music.  I felt upset and nauseous for several hours thereafter.  This unpleasant experience repeated itself the next time I tried to listen.  I returned the amp to its designer with regrets, telling him I appeared to be allergic to it.

I invite anyone with a generator and scope to observe the output waveform (sinusoid and square wave) of any switching amp.  You will see, as I did, large amounts of out of band noise and oscillation.  Square waves above 1 kHz look bad.

Recently at CES I co-exhibited with Wyred4Sound and used their DAC and preamp with Ampzilla Class AB electronics and one of their W4S branded Class D amplifiers.  I did not experience the same stomach upset I had with those earlier amplifiers..  Recently I had the W4S small integrated (100W/ch) in my system for several months, listening almost daily without fatigue or distress.  The sound was clear, natural, and well defined.

I understand switching amps are particularly load sensitive and react strongly to large phase angles, impedance dips, and reactive loads in general.  This might account for the wide range of opinions from owners using such amps with various brands and designs of speakers, particularly those with high order crossover filter slopes.

Brian Cheney
Owner, VMPS Audio Products
www.vmpsaudio.com

[OzarkTom]

Interesting you would single out the Musical Fidelity A1. I still clearly remember hearing the A1 for the first time. I was in retail 20 years ago and the A1 sounded so much better in certain respects than all the other amps we were selling (I remember orchestral string sections sounding great) that I doubted what I was hearing and thought there might be something else at play - perhaps large amounts of even order added harmonics such as tubes tend to provide - and I put the experience on my mental back burner for further consideration. We only ever had the one amp, so I never got the opportunity to double check. Other amps we had on hand for comparison included YBA, Sugden, Carver and the like..

The bigger brother, the A100 was even quite a bit better. But than one did not take off like the A1 did, probably because of the noisy fan.

[OzarkTom]

I agree with Brian Cheney, fatigue has always set in with me listening to  switching amps. But put the same amp on a battery supply, and the fatigue totally disappears.