[playntheblues]

The new Lampizater with the retro chip, remote volume, balanced.  It ads a little sweetness to the Ncore since it has tube, rectifier and  output stage.  It has a lot of detail, liquid detail  LOL.

[Rclark]

If I'm not mistaken, the Veritas is built with room for bridging, so there must be something to it here.

[Julf]

This is an ultra simplified answer but cuts to the chase.  The loudest (most powerful) wins.

I agree with the loudest. Doesn't need to be the most powerful. I have done a bunch of blind listening tests with various people, and in most tests, people prefer even a mp3 file over a high-res FLAC is the mp3 file is even 1 dB louder... So any difference in gain/volume will make a difference in listening results.

[munosmario]

If I'm not mistaken, the Veritas is built with room for bridging, so there must be something to it here.

Rclark, I wouldn't read too much out of that. 

Excerpted from Bruno's " Is class D finally ready to compete with class A" talk presented at HighEnd 2012 in Munich:

"With an amplifier like Ncore, getting the placement of a part or trace wrong by one millimeter is the difference between top performance and not getting the thing to work at all."

With such a recent categoric statement from the Master himself, does not make you wonder what adding "bridging" circuitry/connectivity/conversion switching, etc., does to the milimetric fine tuning of each of the independent NC modules being bridged (particularly if done by an improvising DIYer)?

munosmario

[playntheblues]

Wow Munosmario, you mean if I unbridge my 400's they will even be better!  What am I waiting for thanks for the tip!   

[James Romeyn]

Wow Munosmario, you mean if I unbridge my 400's they will even be better!  What am I waiting for thanks for the tip!   

Point well taken.  But IIRC he specifically stated his points concerning the downside of bridging (well established to now) do not apply to Brown's amp and may not apply to Ncore. 

I just wonder how long my hearing would last "upgrading" from three measly NC400 to bridged versions.  I worked at the Record Plant whose control rooms had two JBL 15s and huge horn lens in each of four corners (active crossover, Crown 300s), and know well the thermally uncompressed dynamics of AudioKinesis (per Lynn Olsen the loudest/cleanest ever auditioned).  Unrestricted dynamic range can corrupt one's sense of loud.   

[munosmario]

Wow Munosmario, you mean if I unbridge my 400's they will even be better!  What am I waiting for thanks for the tip!   

Wow to you too, playingtheblues. I would never dare to tell you what sounds good to you. You already said two posts ago that "The loudest (most powerful) wins." So, that's it for you: two bridged NC400 play/sound louder, so, they win. But as you well know, loudness and dynamics are only a couple of the dozen or more attributes of ultimate Sound Quality. As I said before (Post #16), if headroom is what your loudspeakers/system need (at the sound levels you like to listen), then, bridging two NC400 will be your ticket (as apparently it has been the case), but that does not mean, at all, that the performance of the bridged arrangement has accross the board the same or, let alone, improve the top sonic performance of a single NC400--as "milimetrically" designed and fine-tuned by Bruno. If you want to go deeper on the meaning of Bruno's "millimeter" statement (in itself and as it relates to this topic), please, contact him and ask directly.

munosmario

[James Romeyn]

This gets into that nebulous quality of thermal dynamic compression.  During an instrumental tone's dynamic envelope the quality of the waveform changes dramatically over time.  Leading edge transients suffer most from thermal dynamic compression.  Such transients largely determine differences between instrumental timbres. 

Listeners whose systems thermally compress at low to moderate levels (most systems) are less likely to value a higher thermal dynamic envelope simply because they don't know what they're missing.

MP3 is much more dynamically compressed than high-res files.  Less dynamic range sounds louder (shouty) even if the average level is the same. 

[OzarkTom]

Everyone be careful on how loud you play your system, or you will be selling your prized system due to tinnitus.

http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/hearing/pages/ruler.aspx

[Russell Dawkins]

Realistically, I think the dangers are elsewhere - for most people, anyway.  I think the biggest threat is in the environment, like loud continuous sounds made by various types of machinery or wind roar under a motorcycle helmet - that sort of thing.

I have tinnitus, but i think it was caused by 12 hour a day exposure to the sound of engines in a big ship's engine room. We had hearing protection, but I don't think it was enough to prevent damage. It might also have been caused by one or another of two cretinous sound men handling the PA at a couple of concerts I went to 30 years ago. One of them caused a strong whistling and major (~80%) hearing loss for two days. I thought I had done permanent damage at the time. One of these sound men had a T shirt proclaiming "If it's too loud, you're too old". They were a visiting band from Scotland who seemed determined to prove that Celtic music could rock out. Unfortunately, their interpretation of "rocking out" involved little more than being really loud. Like, I'd guess 135dB peaks.

My ears have whistled fairly quietly but continuously at around 3kHz for these last 30-odd years.

Back to NCore - sorry. 

[orientalexpress]

Everyone be careful on how loud you play your system, or you will be selling your prized system due to tinnitus.

http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/hearing/pages/ruler.aspx

According to that site,everybody either deaf or got tinnitus by now.


lapsan

[studley]

The Mola Mola amps will be appearing in the coming weeks and so the 400 vs 1200 debate may resurface.  In fact I'm going to try and trigger it!   On the Atsah website it gives quotes from some beta testers who frequent these pages.  It would be great to hear unedited comments from them on their impressions of how the Atsah amps at least compared to their 400 amps.   You know who you are guys!

[OzarkTom]

The Mola Mola amps will be appearing in the coming weeks and so the 400 vs 1200 debate may resurface.  In fact I'm going to try and trigger it!   On the Atsah website it gives quotes from some beta testers who frequent these pages.  It would be great to hear unedited comments from them on their impressions of how the Atsah amps at least compared to their 400 amps.   You know who you are guys!

I don't own either one, but the Atsahs were much smoother than the Ncores 400's in my system as well as being more holographic.

[James Romeyn]

NC400 mono seem to define specific locations of images in the sound stage better than anything else I auditioned at home.  Atma Sphere images may be more holographic, but NC400 seem to define image locations better.

Just a couple examples, both cases listening to a Live James Taylor CD.  Audience members seem to locate 75' or more beyond front and side walls.  Also, James has a high quality moderately large group of back ground singers.  Bruno's amp defines their exact semi circle shape behind James and the exact distance between the singers and James.  It's uncanny.  Two professional musicians and one luthier heard this same phenomena and made involuntary verbal reactions to the music.  It's pretty cool hearing non-audiophiles use audiophile terms to define what they are hearing. 

[studley]

Thanks both.  I have NC400s and think they are terrific, hence the curioisity about the 1200s. 

[Rclark]

I don't own either one, but the Atsahs were much smoother than the Ncores 400's in my system as well as being more holographic.

Of course, this comparison of yours was done without both amps on hand to compare, from memory with a few months apart.

[medium jim]

Of course, this comparison of yours was done without both amps on hand to compare, from memory with a few months apart.

Most who have had both liked the 1200 over the 400.   This is what I glean from those who have offered their first hand opinion. 

http://www.audionervosa.com/index.php?topic=4182.0

Just the facts...

Jim

[Rclark]

That's right, I can believe it sounds better in some systems, but his comparison is pretty suspect. Same with the TBI, he was ready to bash the moment he got the amp.

Can't really compare amps from a fuzzy memory in your head.

Just like when the Vapor Breeze shows up here I'm not going to try and compare it to the N1X from a year and a half old memory.

[OzarkTom]

That's right, I can believe it sounds better in some systems, but his comparison is pretty suspect. Same with the TBI, he was ready to bash the moment he got the

You are so wrong on that one rclark. I was ready to buy the Ncore 400's but they did not work in my system. I wound up buying a Stello AI700 for more money. That amp is very close to the Atsahs NC1200 s that beat the Ncore 400's. But the Stello has remote and 500wpc.

[ufokillerz]

i have 3 nc400 monoblocks, and i have 2 of merrill's veritas amps (got here last saturday), i plan to sit down this weekend for a nice comparison, i am no audiophile as some people call themselves though, so i'm not sure if i can throw out any comparisons of them that wouldn't sound overly simplified.