And of course active crossovers make that a non-issue.
Do you have any measurements you could share?
Now that I have home I can share some:
The first is the NCore on an average driver (Monacor SPH-170, 6" bassmid ), no fancy driver here with massive shorting rings:
The second is NCore + 8 ohm in series, the third with 35 ohm in series.
The fourth is the same driver but with a F2J with ~ 700 ohm output impedance.
Here is with a driver that does have massive shorting rings, the TD6M:
First up is NCore, second up is the F2J: The difference is not there in this driver, if anything the NCore has slightly less distortion but most importantly the driver doesn't perform much better with current source than with a voltage one. The copper does eat a lot of efficiency though.
So for fun I also have 6x 6ND430 in an OB, far far more efficient than the TD6M as they have no shorting rings although they have very low distortion anyway. The result is the same, current source makes the driver go from having low distortion to stupid low distortion (above fs of course, this driver will not be used below 300 hz
): The amp here is not a NCore though but another voltage source amp I had lying around close by.EDIT: The first four measurements I'm not sure exactly what the SPL is but it is same for all measurements, same for the 2 following: 100 dB there is not actually 100 dB but same scale on both. On the last I calibrated it so 95 dB there is 95 dB / 1 m.
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Yup, it looks to be very driver dependant. Here we have the 2x 6ND430s with 16 ohm in parallel with the current source amplifier to get 1 damping factor:
2nd and 3rd harmonics skyrocket on the low end but the distortion is otherwise a mix between voltage and current source, the high end distortion is almost as good as the current source. This driver would probably be fine with less output impedance than 700 to perform well than the other one.
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Bruno also replied to somebody who reported awesome improvement in the bass with the NCore. Bruno said that his statement was a hunch but that he was glad to learn that the bass was so improved for an actual user. Unless there was more reports one way or another I consider the advantage of NCore over UcD for the bass an undecided question.
BTW I agree that current source is a great thing, I suspect this is what good subwoofer manufacturers such as REL might use that makes such a difference acoustically.
BTW I agree that current source is a great thing, I suspect this is what good subwoofer manufacturers such as REL might use that makes such a difference acoustically.
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It was StigErik, who owns a quite exotic active system featuring ultra low distortion in the bass frequencies. My own tests, in various (more conventional) setups, seem to confirm that the advantages of NCores over UCDs extend to the lower frequencies as well.
Nevertheless, building an all-NCore 3-way system can be an expensive endeavor, so adding some UCDs in the mix is a reasonable compromise.
Nevertheless, building an all-NCore 3-way system can be an expensive endeavor, so adding some UCDs in the mix is a reasonable compromise.
It's older ClassA project of Bruno Putzeys and Sander Sassen -- ExtremA, a reference class-A DIY amplifier. - Introduction
Hi there, I have a Nuclear NC1000 amplifier that has the Ice Power ASL1000 modules, whilst I like this amp very much and does very little wrong, I was wondering if the NCore would be an upgrade as far as sound quality goes. I know the power will be much less, but less can be more in some respects.
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