TC Electronics Switch amp

[Kurt von Kubik]

Originally Posted by Workhorse

UCD committs suicide when driven with NO LOAD??

Recently I saw a smoked ICE-Power amp in active speaker, the speaker coil wire was broken, probablya manufacturing defect, but it created the same open-load condition.

I do not remember the name of the module, but it was a Hypex made one.
And it really led out the smoke
The filter coil melted completely.
Of course ICE also can burn, but normally they are very well protected, but a broken voicecoil sounds to me as a DC problem.

[Ltralus]

Originally Posted by Kurt von Kubik

Well the Hypex modules uses a different technology than B&O.
You can read all about it @ their website, they actually produced an endless series of academic papers, presented at AES conventions through the last decade.
The designer of the TC module was part of the team behind amongst others this paper http://www.icepower.bang-olufsen.com...ntion/5197.pdf
This describes in detail some of the essentials in ICE power, which is not at all available anywhere else in any form besides TC.

Through time`I´ve had many visitors coming by showing me their class D amplifiers, and it has been a long row of funny experiences.
Four times did the amps commit suicide just in front of us, all of these burns were due to unloaded condition. This because we compared them to my linear amps, but when unloaded for a few minutes they died.
It was amps from Hypex, Nuforce and Tripath.
ICE power amps such as Acoustic Reality and Bertram were in the contrary unconditionally stable, and they could easily be switched on without load.

Today ICE has sold more than 100 mio channels, and more than 30 engineers are employed in optimizing the technology.
Looking at data and theory of operation of both ICE and Hypex, leaves no doubt on which technology is superior, and in my experience this also goes for the sonic impression.
Unfortunately ICE is not available to DIYérs, but luckily the TC module is. It is a bit pricy though, but compared to linear amps available on the market, you´ll have to spend loads of money to get comparable performance.

You're outright lying, or completely clueless and very imaginative, take your pick.

[AP2]

Hi,
We speak of defects ... The list is long.
We talk about innovation in the class D!
Hypex is good and very different from other schemes (thanks to Philips R & D)
old but has no innovation.
B & O has a good sound, 500w model does not have much strength in intensive use.
scheme is still older than UCD.
Tell me what company made a class D on real innovations on board?

Best regards

[Kurt von Kubik]

Originally Posted by Ltralus

You're outright lying, or completely clueless and very imaginative, take your pick.

About what may I ask?
Enlighten us please.

[phase_accurate]

Hypex is good and very different from other schemes (thanks to Philips R & D) old but has no innovation.

IMO with the "innovation" statement you are going out on a limb !

Someone mentioned the small-signal bandwidth of UcD. The priciple as such allows an overall first-order lowpass transfer function. AFAIK the current Hypex modules use an additional lowpass at the input to avoid TIM problems.

A post-filter feedback topology can be made such that the small-signal bandwidth equals the unity gain point of the feedback loop. This is not that difficult. It is the designer's job to make wise use of it !

Regards

Charles

[Eva]

Originally Posted by Ltralus

It is not UCD eva, and it wouldn't be the same result at all as their performance is not equivalent. Perhaps you should reread the threads where their differences have already been discussed. Why must all your posts turn into a product advertisement for yourself?

It's not advertisement, it's humiliation for the big companies because someone like me, coming from the DIY world, can develop better technology on his home lab without expensive teams of engineers or the help of any big brand...

Originally Posted by Ltralus

Have you not seen the datasheet? Of course UCD has small signal response beyond filter cut off, where do you think you got the trick? Just another advertisement.

Of course I saw the datasheets, but I have also reverse engineered the actual products, so my knowledge is not *limited* to advertisements.

Both ICEpower and UcD are phase shift oscillators. ICEpower ruins the beautiful performance that they can provide by using split feedback, a big mistake (and by routing the delicate carrier residual through two inexpensive MC33078). UcD uses almost the full potential of the physical principle and routes the carrier residual to the comparator through passives only (the right way to do it).

My technology tries to use the potential of phase shift oscillation to an even further degree, and at much higher powers whithout giving up on efficiency as much as in UcD2k. My output stage is unique in many ways, it idles at around 15W with 170V DC supply, as opposed to the 35W from UcD2k at only 144V DC, and 2800W/4R efficiency is over 95% from mains input to speaker, as opposed to 92% from UcD2k without including power supply losses, so I'm also one step ahead of the big guys in that field.

Originally Posted by Kurt von Kubik

Well the Hypex modules uses a different technology than B&O.
You can read all about it @ their website, they actually produced an endless series of academic papers, presented at AES conventions through the last decade.
The designer of the TC module was part of the team behind amongst others this paper http://www.icepower.bang-olufsen.com...ntion/5197.pdf
This describes in detail some of the essentials in ICE power, which is not at all available anywhere else in any form besides TC.

Through time`I´ve had many visitors coming by showing me their class D amplifiers, and it has been a long row of funny experiences.
Four times did the amps commit suicide just in front of us, all of these burns were due to unloaded condition. This because we compared them to my linear amps, but when unloaded for a few minutes they died.
It was amps from Hypex, Nuforce and Tripath.
ICE power amps such as Acoustic Reality and Bertram were in the contrary unconditionally stable, and they could easily be switched on without load.

Today ICE has sold more than 100 mio channels, and more than 30 engineers are employed in optimizing the technology.
Looking at data and theory of operation of both ICE and Hypex, leaves no doubt on which technology is superior, and in my experience this also goes for the sonic impression.
Unfortunately ICE is not available to DIYérs, but luckily the TC module is. It is a bit pricy though, but compared to linear amps available on the market, you´ll have to spend loads of money to get comparable performance.

Blah blah blah...

You learn much more about how things work by tracing PCBs than by reading the documents that you are expected to read Sometimes, playing around with oscilloscope, you can even discover circuit mistakes that the original designers overlooked because they didn't care to look at every waveform on a production sample

ICEpower is slowly dying. Their technology has almost not changed at all since they began, and they are slowly losing customers as suggested by their various price increases during 2009.

People is just switching to other technologies because they are a bit fed up of them and their continuous price increases, and the lack of protections on the non-ASP amplifiers, their unfriendly support, etc...

My amplifier is not available for the DIY market either, I was just hired to design it for someone else So talking about it in a place like this can't be regarded as advertisement of any product

My purpose is to tease other people, whose products are targeted at the DIY market, and that are trying to advertise themselves here for free and to persuade everyone to buy their product at their store because it has the best performance, when they are not that good... The method: Comparing their achievements with mine

ICEpower is a special case bacause, although it is not available to the DIY market, it has a lot of positive hype around that it does not deserve at all.

[AP2]

.. the truth always comes out!
Big companies and 30 engineers .. I know.. so I went faster on your own!
Eva .. I was going to say the same thing.

[Kurt von Kubik]

Originally Posted by Eva

Blah blah blah...

You learn much more about how things work by tracing PCBs than by reading the documents that you are expected to read Sometimes, playing around with oscilloscope, you can even discover circuit mistakes that the original designers overlooked because they didn't care to look at every waveform on a production sample

ICEpower is slowly dying. Their technology has almost not changed at all since they began, and they are slowly losing customers as suggested by their various price increases during 2009.

People is just switching to other technologies because they are a bit fed up of them and their continuous price increases, and the lack of protections on the non-ASP amplifiers, their unfriendly support, etc...

My amplifier is not available for the DIY market either, I was just hired to design it for someone else So talking about it in a place like this can't be regarded as advertisement of any product

My purpose is to tease other people, whose products are targeted at the DIY market, and that are trying to advertise themselves here for free and to persuade everyone to buy their product at their store because it has the best performance, when they are not that good... The method: Comparing their achievements with mine

ICEpower is a special case bacause, although it is not available to the DIY market, it has a lot of positive hype around that it does not deserve at all.

Well you better bring the news to the stockmarket, you could make a fortune by shortselling B&O shares, with that knowledge.
To my knowledge though, the ICEpower division is very succesfull, i.e. Samsung adobted it for their TV sets and for their mobile phones.

I don´t want to go into a discussion whether hypex or ICE is the best class D on the market, Hypex is simply of no interest to me what so ever, just as ICE is not either.
I put my money on the TC module, i´ve already got one, and my pal and I did already build a buffer and a decent PSU for it, just as we investigated what the module is sensitive to.
So by now, in my experience, class D became somewhat interesting, which I´ve never found it before incl. Hypex, Nuforce, Tripath, LC and New Class D.
I think it is due to their special feedback circuitry, because I´ve never heard any amplifier capable of the control and 3D, which the TC module is.

I did not test all different Hypex modules, as well as I did not check out all Nuforce amps, because the first impression did not at all make me curious. This one did, and later on I´ve heard of very respectable audiophiles saying the same.

To me this is real world competition to even very high end class A amplifiers, each of them having their strengths, none of them having all of them.

Btw. if anyone should doubt the AES papers scientific accuracy, I think AES would be thankfull recieving advice and correction.

[AP2]

TO PHASE_ACCURATE:

I would be out of limbo why?
I said that on hypex and B & O is not innovative architecture.
... this is fake?
General digram of UDC is different from others, ex. driver stage, pre-drive and FB entry-Point.
repeat ... Hypex is a great amp but does not contain any new architecture(innovations), it sells good.
PSU on amplifier? ... Maybe 30 engineers are still working on the amplifier!

[Kurt von Kubik]

Originally Posted by AP2

TO PHASE_ACCURATE:

I would be out of limbo why?
I said that on hypex and B & O is not innovative architecture.
... this is fake?
General digram of UDC is different from others, ex. driver stage, pre-drive and FB entry-Point.
repeat ... Hypex is a great amp but does not contain any new architecture(innovations), it sells good.
PSU on amplifier? ... Maybe 30 engineers are still working on the amplifier!

ICEpower themselves states, that 80% of their 50 employees are working with R&D.
To me that is pretty real, because the modules are just a tiny bit of their business, ICE IC´s is a much larger business area, which is used in mobile phones, iPODs, computers and much more.
The modules were just the beginning, but never mind, they still hold patents on 2 feedback loops, which others would break a leg to aquire.
Look at their data sheets, ICE rules that world by a comfortable factor

But the TC is even better, just try it out.