Wow... you guys really understand babelfish???
Anyway, here's the English version...
(now Im supposed to say "sorry for my English" but after the Babelfish thing I thing I'm not doing bad at all
)
I got a mail from the store where I bought my UcD 400's if I was interested to try a pair of UcD 700 amps. Of course I was interested and last sunday the amps arrived at my home.
My set-up looks like this:
Pre amp: Thel, diy, old version.
CD: Steinmusic CDM-12 unmodified.
Power amps: Pass Aleph 5 and UcD 400 (standard version with 40.000 uF Nichicon)
Speakers: Alcone Fourier with Dynaudio D-260 Esotec tweeters.
First I compared the UcD 400 and the UcD 700. These amps sound very different. The UcD 400 sounds a bit clinical. Everything is there and the sound is very precise, detailled. On my (!) equipment it sounds rather cold. A bit too detailled and precise. The holografic reproduction (soundstage) in particular is absolutely fabulous. Bass is deep and "dry", mids are clear and well detailled. High's are bright, sparkling, sometimes a little too sparkling for my taste.
Than the UcD-700. Everything I wrote about the UcD 400, the UcD 700 does better. Al lot better! The UcD-700 gives more "emotion" to the music. There is no "dry" Bass, mids are balanced and well detailled. High's have a nice "round" brightness. It amplifies the music with a greater ease than the UcD 400. In my opinion you can hear that. The UcD-700 is very comfortable to listen to. Also In my opinion the UcD-700 is a big step forward compared to my UcD-400.
I also compared the UcD-700 with my (diy) Aleph 5. The difference between them is not as big as between my UcD 400 and the UcD 700. As expected the Aleph 5 sounds a bit 'warmer' than the UcD-700. Soundstage of the Aleph 5 is not as big as the UcD 700. they both go deep, the UcD- a bit deeper than the Aleph 5. There is one thing that the UcD 700, as expected, does better than the Aleph 5: detail and precision.
If I had to buy a new amp and the choice was between the amp's mentioned above, the UcD-700 would be my choice. Why? Well, it is not burning away 300 Watt doing nothing. They are a lot smaller than my Aleph's which is also very conveniant. I would not go for the UcD 400 for reasons mentioned above. Mind you, it is a very good amp but the UcD 700 is better....
I would like to thank the store where I bought my UcD-400 (Speaker & Co Groningen) and Jan Peter for giving me the opportunity to listen to the UcD700!
Jan
Anyway, here's the English version...
(now Im supposed to say "sorry for my English" but after the Babelfish thing I thing I'm not doing bad at all
)I got a mail from the store where I bought my UcD 400's if I was interested to try a pair of UcD 700 amps. Of course I was interested and last sunday the amps arrived at my home.
My set-up looks like this:
Pre amp: Thel, diy, old version.
CD: Steinmusic CDM-12 unmodified.
Power amps: Pass Aleph 5 and UcD 400 (standard version with 40.000 uF Nichicon)
Speakers: Alcone Fourier with Dynaudio D-260 Esotec tweeters.
First I compared the UcD 400 and the UcD 700. These amps sound very different. The UcD 400 sounds a bit clinical. Everything is there and the sound is very precise, detailled. On my (!) equipment it sounds rather cold. A bit too detailled and precise. The holografic reproduction (soundstage) in particular is absolutely fabulous. Bass is deep and "dry", mids are clear and well detailled. High's are bright, sparkling, sometimes a little too sparkling for my taste.
Than the UcD-700. Everything I wrote about the UcD 400, the UcD 700 does better. Al lot better! The UcD-700 gives more "emotion" to the music. There is no "dry" Bass, mids are balanced and well detailled. High's have a nice "round" brightness. It amplifies the music with a greater ease than the UcD 400. In my opinion you can hear that. The UcD-700 is very comfortable to listen to. Also In my opinion the UcD-700 is a big step forward compared to my UcD-400.
I also compared the UcD-700 with my (diy) Aleph 5. The difference between them is not as big as between my UcD 400 and the UcD 700. As expected the Aleph 5 sounds a bit 'warmer' than the UcD-700. Soundstage of the Aleph 5 is not as big as the UcD 700. they both go deep, the UcD- a bit deeper than the Aleph 5. There is one thing that the UcD 700, as expected, does better than the Aleph 5: detail and precision.
If I had to buy a new amp and the choice was between the amp's mentioned above, the UcD-700 would be my choice. Why? Well, it is not burning away 300 Watt doing nothing. They are a lot smaller than my Aleph's which is also very conveniant. I would not go for the UcD 400 for reasons mentioned above. Mind you, it is a very good amp but the UcD 700 is better....
I would like to thank the store where I bought my UcD-400 (Speaker & Co Groningen) and Jan Peter for giving me the opportunity to listen to the UcD700!
Jan
serengetiplains said:
Thanks for your order!
You can replace the BCC/Vishay capacitors, but you have to be VERY carefully! The PCB is a 4-layer, and there are some small SMD components mount very near to these caps. You could very easy damage the board when you are not experienced!
We do like to sell our stuf, but not in the case when the amps are broken by not educated people. This is a general warning and of course not particuler for Serengetiplains (please do understand).
However....why shoudn't you change the nice low ESR caps? They sound very good, and is needed for a low EMI and local decoupling.
Please listen first to the amp, and after some listening experience try to change something. I would go for a better output capacitor, you could place difference size and in total you can place 5 pieces. 3 on top and 2 on bottom. And not to forget that it is possible to use two singel op amps instead of one dual op amp. Of course the standard version has the AD8620, but you could consider to use two OPA637 (correct me if I am wrond, but this should be a very good sounding one).
Last warning, the amps is running in general with 2 x 90VDC, be VERY carefull with changements. Always waits for several minutes that the capacitors are fully discharged. it's not funny to discharg a 20,000uF capacitor charged with 90VDC with a screwdriver.....
Cheers,
Jan-Peter
Journalists? Articles? On that note this is an excellent opportunity to plug my UcD400 article, have a look below:
Believe the Hypex, class-D DIY amplifier
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1822/
Best regards,
Sander Sassen
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com
Believe the Hypex, class-D DIY amplifier
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1822/
Best regards,
Sander Sassen
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com
Leeuwarden said:
Babelfish plus knowing German combined was enough to get the main idea, although I am not sure if I learned anything else from Babelfish I didn't understand reading the plain Dutch
Hey - did you look under the hood of the 700s? What kind of transformer(s) and power supply was in there?
Peter
Peter,
I think you fail to understand something, the UcD700 (or any UcD module for that matter) doesn't need a >700VA transformer to work, it'll happily run on a 160VA transformer, or a 50VA one for example, provided they supply the correct voltage. Although it will not be able to deliver the full 700-watts, it will work nonetheless.
Best regards,
Sander Sassen
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com
I think you fail to understand something, the UcD700 (or any UcD module for that matter) doesn't need a >700VA transformer to work, it'll happily run on a 160VA transformer, or a 50VA one for example, provided they supply the correct voltage. Although it will not be able to deliver the full 700-watts, it will work nonetheless.
Best regards,
Sander Sassen
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com
SSassen said:
I do understand you can power these things with a few dozen AA batteries hooked up in series. I am asking because Jan-Peter posted that the best sound can be achieved when you built full mono, use 40,000uF capacitance for each module, and based on his own posts a few weeks ago, a 1200Va transformer for 2 channels may be about right.
Also, I didn't just spend $1500 to run the amps at anything less than 700 watts per channel.
The bottom line is that I want to know what was being compared to the UCD400s. That has nothing to do with not understanding anything about what these modules will work with or not.
When a reviewer talks about excellent bass control and at the same time the amps are actually limited to half their theoretical RMS output by using small transformers, it actually puts the UCD700 modules into an even better light.
Peter
pburke said:
There can some difference between different brands of transformers in rating of the power of the transformers. So sometimes a 120VA rated transformers will be rated for 160VA by an other manufacture. Don’t think only on the VA rating…
To come back on the Demo Mono Block UcD700, I have just checked but we use two 225VA (I have to correct myself!) rated transformer manufactured by a good manufacture. So actually we use a 450VA transformer!
Besides this the amps are checked on the Audio Precision and all measured at 1% THD +/- 650W in 4 ohm, so we were happy with these transformers…..
The amps do performance very nice, it can be that by an huge transformers the sonic performance will be even better, I don’t know we did not yet test that….
Cheers,
Jan-Peter
Peter?
What are you going to do? Use them for PA amplification at a concert or disco or something? Not *ever* will you be using even a quarter of that power in a normal living room. So to be honest I can see that you want to provide a nice and stable power-supply for the modules but a 400 or 500VA transformer will really suffice in 99% of all applications.
Or maybe it is just a cultural thing? Build 'm bigger, build 'm better? Many Americans seem to subscribe to that notion.
Either way dual-mono is the way to go, do not power these modules from a single transformer if you're looking for the best solution, even if it is a 1200VA one. Also keep in mind that buffering is more important than pure transformer wattage, as that's where your peak currents are coming from, the total of 40.000-uF SlitFoil caps in the Hypex HG power supply are there for a reason.
Best regards,
Sander Sassen
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com
What are you going to do? Use them for PA amplification at a concert or disco or something? Not *ever* will you be using even a quarter of that power in a normal living room. So to be honest I can see that you want to provide a nice and stable power-supply for the modules but a 400 or 500VA transformer will really suffice in 99% of all applications.
Or maybe it is just a cultural thing? Build 'm bigger, build 'm better? Many Americans seem to subscribe to that notion.
Either way dual-mono is the way to go, do not power these modules from a single transformer if you're looking for the best solution, even if it is a 1200VA one. Also keep in mind that buffering is more important than pure transformer wattage, as that's where your peak currents are coming from, the total of 40.000-uF SlitFoil caps in the Hypex HG power supply are there for a reason.
Best regards,
Sander Sassen
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com
Peter,
Parlez vous Francais? Sprechen sie Deutsch? Spreek je Nederlands? No need to get defensive, I'm just trying to get a better perspective on why you seem so dead-set on pairing these amplifiers with the biggest transformers you can find. As for normal use that does not have any benefits, as you'll never come close to taxing them.
However you make it sound like this is a requirement for the amplifiers to work, which is not the case. But your comments here could well mislead other (less-informed) readers into thinking that that is a requirement set in stone, which it is not[/b]. Hence it would be most helpful if you list what you'll be using this for, so people can relate to your application.
From where I'm sitting bi-amping a two-way loudspeaker with 2x 700-watts is a bit ludricous, you'll only need about 10-watts for any tweeter, even those that are relatively inefficient such as a band-tweeter. But by all means let us know why you need this much power, as all we can do right now is make assumptions and do some (educated) guesswork.
Best regards,
Sander Sassen
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com
Parlez vous Francais? Sprechen sie Deutsch? Spreek je Nederlands? No need to get defensive, I'm just trying to get a better perspective on why you seem so dead-set on pairing these amplifiers with the biggest transformers you can find. As for normal use that does not have any benefits, as you'll never come close to taxing them.
However you make it sound like this is a requirement for the amplifiers to work, which is not the case. But your comments here could well mislead other (less-informed) readers into thinking that that is a requirement set in stone, which it is not[/b]. Hence it would be most helpful if you list what you'll be using this for, so people can relate to your application.
From where I'm sitting bi-amping a two-way loudspeaker with 2x 700-watts is a bit ludricous, you'll only need about 10-watts for any tweeter, even those that are relatively inefficient such as a band-tweeter. But by all means let us know why you need this much power, as all we can do right now is make assumptions and do some (educated) guesswork.
Best regards,
Sander Sassen
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.