I hate youMine are up and running now. There is sound.
Better wait a good 7000 hours of break-in before I listen seriously....
Mine are up and running now. There is sound.
Better wait a good 7000 hours of break-in before I listen seriously....
it's not nice to tease another person ;-)
This is great stuff, but....
there are two (or three) details I dont like:
The gold output terminals may look fancy, but they dont hold the wire good enough I think. The wires have come loose several times here. Guess it won't be a problem when the module and wiring is mounted in a case though.... so its a minor issue.
LEDs. Why, why, why are there SOOOOOO many of them. Looks like Amsterdam's red light district over here now..... I waiting for dubious women to appear behind my speakers any time soon.
And in all this exitement I managed to yank out all signal wires from the connector. A word of warning: DONT pull the wires, only the connector!
But the sound of this thing.... whow.
there are two (or three) details I dont like:
The gold output terminals may look fancy, but they dont hold the wire good enough I think. The wires have come loose several times here. Guess it won't be a problem when the module and wiring is mounted in a case though.... so its a minor issue.
LEDs. Why, why, why are there SOOOOOO many of them. Looks like Amsterdam's red light district over here now..... I waiting for dubious women to appear behind my speakers any time soon.
And in all this exitement I managed to yank out all signal wires from the connector. A word of warning: DONT pull the wires, only the connector!
But the sound of this thing.... whow.
"Whow" compared to UcD180HG HxR.
Oh yes, this is significantly better I think.
The most significant is:
Sound stage. Much more stable and at the same time larger and more spacious. Its no problem hearing where things are placed in a complex soundstage. Rock solid imaging I would say.
Resolution. I hear various sounds, reverbs, and even instruments that just were not there with the UcD! And its much easier to understand what people are singing (the text). The UcD adds some nice sweetness to the sound, but the price is loss of details and resolution. Ncore sounds more "direct" and let you "see" more precisely into the music.
Tonal balance seems to be much the same as UcD, no surprise really.
On a scale from 1 to 10, my rating would be 11.
Thanks to Bruno and Hypex for a very very good sounding amplifier!
Oh yes, this is significantly better I think.
The most significant is:
Sound stage. Much more stable and at the same time larger and more spacious. Its no problem hearing where things are placed in a complex soundstage. Rock solid imaging I would say.
Resolution. I hear various sounds, reverbs, and even instruments that just were not there with the UcD! And its much easier to understand what people are singing (the text). The UcD adds some nice sweetness to the sound, but the price is loss of details and resolution. Ncore sounds more "direct" and let you "see" more precisely into the music.
Tonal balance seems to be much the same as UcD, no surprise really.
On a scale from 1 to 10, my rating would be 11.
Thanks to Bruno and Hypex for a very very good sounding amplifier!
The Ncore is maybe a bit "faster" at the end of transients?
Its almost like the UcD adds som kind of "reverb" or longer decay of transients. In technical terms it doesn't of course, I'm talking purely of subjective impression here. It's like a layer of "something" thats there all the same, which the Ncore is free from.
Its almost like the UcD adds som kind of "reverb" or longer decay of transients. In technical terms it doesn't of course, I'm talking purely of subjective impression here. It's like a layer of "something" thats there all the same, which the Ncore is free from.
i wonder compared to a ucd400hg+hxr if the difference would be smaller
because now you have double+ power.
Hello Erik,
Could you use a spring beneath the screw, a (tooth) lock washer at best or even better, on each side of the cable shoe? No flat washer at all. This should fix the screw and the issue. (The precision mechanics "trick", the contrary is to be seen all over the industry.)
This is an issue I could live with, if the dubious are pretty and kind enough...
Bruno, thank you for the great work! The paper data are nearly unbelievable.
I found some simple measurements regarding the noise of LEDs and Zeners anywhere. Following this, some Zeners are comparable to the LED's behaviour at least.
When did you decide for litz wire? I did in 2006.
Cheers, Timo
Could you use a spring beneath the screw, a (tooth) lock washer at best or even better, on each side of the cable shoe? No flat washer at all. This should fix the screw and the issue. (The precision mechanics "trick", the contrary is to be seen all over the industry.)
This is an issue I could live with, if the dubious are pretty and kind enough...
Bruno, thank you for the great work! The paper data are nearly unbelievable.
I found some simple measurements regarding the noise of LEDs and Zeners anywhere. Following this, some Zeners are comparable to the LED's behaviour at least.
When did you decide for litz wire? I did in 2006.
Cheers, Timo
Thanks for the great comments! I know what the modules sound like but it's always nice to hear someone else say the same
Concerning the screw tag I think it's the springiness of stranded wire that gives the impression that the screw is tightened fast enough before it really is. It certainly fooled me the first time. When you use solid wire, silvered wire (which has thicker strands that stay tighter together) or fork lugs ("cable shoes" in germano-dutch-english), you get a much better "feel" for when it's tightened well. I've set the purchasing department on the search for fork lugs that we can include in the package.
Regarding the input cable: did you actually push the locking lever when trying to remove the cable? In the pulling contest between locking lever and crimp connection, the lever always wins...
Red LED district: Being (reluctantly) Belgian I'm not so much used to seeing red light districts as garishly lit private houses sprinkled along the main roads between cities. They come in any conceivable colour so long as it's fully saturated.
@tiki: I've also seen the noise test, it's somewhere on Diyaudio. I couldn't reproduce it so the one zener voltage that came out as really quiet appears to be an an exceedingly brand dependent outlier. Admittedly LEDs are brand dependent as well but on the average they outperform zeners. Not wanting to settle for average I've tested loads of them and finally settled on a particular colour from Agilent which has both lowest 1/f noise and white noise of the pack, and which no standard zener diode can even approximate.
I didn't switch to litze per se. It simply becomes necessary on account of fringing losses when the ripple current is high (i.e. inductance is low) and the air gap is wide. Otherwise foil is fine and rather cheaper. The reason why you see more and more litze in our modules is because I've decided to reduce inductance.
Concerning the screw tag I think it's the springiness of stranded wire that gives the impression that the screw is tightened fast enough before it really is. It certainly fooled me the first time. When you use solid wire, silvered wire (which has thicker strands that stay tighter together) or fork lugs ("cable shoes" in germano-dutch-english), you get a much better "feel" for when it's tightened well. I've set the purchasing department on the search for fork lugs that we can include in the package.
Regarding the input cable: did you actually push the locking lever when trying to remove the cable? In the pulling contest between locking lever and crimp connection, the lever always wins...
Red LED district: Being (reluctantly) Belgian I'm not so much used to seeing red light districts as garishly lit private houses sprinkled along the main roads between cities. They come in any conceivable colour so long as it's fully saturated.
@tiki: I've also seen the noise test, it's somewhere on Diyaudio. I couldn't reproduce it so the one zener voltage that came out as really quiet appears to be an an exceedingly brand dependent outlier. Admittedly LEDs are brand dependent as well but on the average they outperform zeners. Not wanting to settle for average I've tested loads of them and finally settled on a particular colour from Agilent which has both lowest 1/f noise and white noise of the pack, and which no standard zener diode can even approximate.
I didn't switch to litze per se. It simply becomes necessary on account of fringing losses when the ripple current is high (i.e. inductance is low) and the air gap is wide. Otherwise foil is fine and rather cheaper. The reason why you see more and more litze in our modules is because I've decided to reduce inductance.
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