Finally...
I guess it's time that I post a few words about my listening impressions with NCD1 here. My NCD1 has been assembled for quite a while, but only recently did I get my preamp playing again.
The dynamics are, as has been said before, impressive. I am happy with signal-to-noise; there is some hiss but with my speakers it's nothing to talk about. I am noticing "new" details on my CD's, single instruments seem to go through more clearly than before - especially in the high frequencies, and they don't go missing when some other loud sound kicks in. I was a little concerned that a class D amp might sound "hard", but NCD has absolutely no harshness at all.
So: I'm very happy with the NCD1. It's most definately better than any other amplifier I've owned, but of course I've mainly had smaller integrated amps (some OLD Pioneer, Audiosource Amp-100, Marantz PM32, Aura VA-100 II and then the late Aura PA-200).
My NCD1 implementation is very basic; I've had to modify the NCD power supply for use with a center-tapped transformer, so it's probably not performing to its full potential (but I'm very happy with it as is). I salvaged transformer, enclosure etc. from the Aura PA-200.
The disclaimers:
1) I can't say how NCD compares to other class D amps, as I've never owned one, all I know is it sounds a lot better than my old (and battered!) classAB power amp did (Aura PA-200). Haven't really listened to any new commercial power amps lately. , but there really aren't many to be had in the price range of the NCD1 2) Changes to the preamp may also contibute to the improved sound, even though the basic circuit is still the same. "Before NCD" the preamp was was an input buffer with AD8610 and a PGA2310 volume control. Now I have added a DC servo and a unity gain output buffer with AD8610 after the PGA2310 (plus some minor component upgrades, and classA bias for the opamps).
I guess it's time that I post a few words about my listening impressions with NCD1 here. My NCD1 has been assembled for quite a while, but only recently did I get my preamp playing again.
The dynamics are, as has been said before, impressive. I am happy with signal-to-noise; there is some hiss but with my speakers it's nothing to talk about. I am noticing "new" details on my CD's, single instruments seem to go through more clearly than before - especially in the high frequencies, and they don't go missing when some other loud sound kicks in. I was a little concerned that a class D amp might sound "hard", but NCD has absolutely no harshness at all.
So: I'm very happy with the NCD1. It's most definately better than any other amplifier I've owned, but of course I've mainly had smaller integrated amps (some OLD Pioneer, Audiosource Amp-100, Marantz PM32, Aura VA-100 II and then the late Aura PA-200).
My NCD1 implementation is very basic; I've had to modify the NCD power supply for use with a center-tapped transformer, so it's probably not performing to its full potential (but I'm very happy with it as is). I salvaged transformer, enclosure etc. from the Aura PA-200.
The disclaimers:
1) I can't say how NCD compares to other class D amps, as I've never owned one, all I know is it sounds a lot better than my old (and battered!) classAB power amp did (Aura PA-200). Haven't really listened to any new commercial power amps lately. , but there really aren't many to be had in the price range of the NCD1 2) Changes to the preamp may also contibute to the improved sound, even though the basic circuit is still the same. "Before NCD" the preamp was was an input buffer with AD8610 and a PGA2310 volume control. Now I have added a DC servo and a unity gain output buffer with AD8610 after the PGA2310 (plus some minor component upgrades, and classA bias for the opamps).
If you expected harsh sound from a D amp you are realy expecting the oppsite of what I have often experienced. I think the output transformer is doing some og what a tupe amp output transformer often is = rounding the sound of a bit soften it some. So my experience with the older Zap Pulses up to the 2.3SE is that the better they got the less "soft". So the D-amp AFAIK is more likely to be to forgiving than hard.
Rgds
Rgds
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