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My impressions are similar to yours, mj. For me, the Ncore excels in what class D amps seem consistently to do well, particularly in the way it reproduces midrange ambiance and decay and thus tone. I hear a continuity I quite adore, and in a degree to which I've not heard from other amplifier types. That said, and despite other things the Ncore does well, I find its presentation a little flat, and leaves me wanting more. It's as if the Ncore, like you said, drops the finer leading edges of the music---almost as if I'm listening through a cloth that veils high frequency decay, ambiance and subtle detail.
Not having heard the NCores for myself, here's a question for those who have: do you think these last observations regarding the subjective truncation of the finest decays could be a function of overdamping? Bruno's output impedance specs are some of (if not the) lowest in the industry and apparently linear across the bandwidth. Given that most speakers won't have been designed for that just because it's not been the norm to encounter such amplifiers... is it possible that such extremely low output impedance (which on paper would seem to be the holy grail) is perhaps not the best thing for small lightweight drivers like tweeters and some midranges?Just a thought and question to those who've spent time with these amps
Not having heard the NCores for myself, here's a question for those who have: do you think these last observations regarding the subjective truncation of the finest decays could be a function of overdamping? ... is it possible that such extremely low output impedance (which on paper would seem to be the holy grail) is perhaps not the best thing for small lightweight drivers like tweeters and some midranges?
Maybe i missed this but did anyone compared the Ncore to a Class A solid state amp? I know dynamics in bass might suffer on some speakers with the low watts available in class A but i wonder if the Ncore can deliver or come near the sweetness of a class A. I'm considering a powerful amp for the low frequency driver of my speaker and class A for mids and highs the time being.
Yes, JTWRace had Clayton M300 Class A amps which are about as good as it gets or at least right up there.
And...? How did it compare? Any link to the thread? A search revealed not much.
I DIY'd an F3, F4 monoblocks, Aleph J, and a couple of F5's, all gone or disassembled now, so I can't compare directly but I spent a lot of time with each of them. The NCores might be a distant cousin sonically to the F5 (not the others), but from memory the NCores have more power, more body in the mids, and are just more real and natural sounding than any of those amps. They never seem to breathe very hard either.
Tom, I was very interested in your comments above as I'm a First Watt fan; I've heard an F3, own a pair of DIY F4 monos and have all the parts to build the F5X. What I particularly like in addition to the pure clean sound is the liquidity and palpability (these are the best words I can think of to convey what I mean) of the sound the F4s can deliver. By all accounts the F5 is even better, so the F5X should produce truly gorgeous music. So, against that background what I really want to know is do the Ncores produce that same liquidity / palpability ? (This assumes of course that you can identify and recall the sonic characteristics that I'm talking about!)
I absolutely agree: ALL the great sounding amplifiers I have heard to press (valve and SS) have been class A. Hence my question to Tom. So now I'm relying on Srajan to make the comparison, and he is in a very good position to do so.
At this point it's probably just been too long with many other system changes as well. I definitely preferred the F5 to the F4 mono's I had, but it just ran out of steam.
