Hypex Ncore

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I have just reported you for bringing religion into the topic, strictly against the rules.


Joe, I understand that you feel the effect of damping factor (as defined by the mathematical formulas above) on amplifier performance is greatly overrated. I can easily believe that might be true; my last amplifier didn't measure as well as most on this specification but sounded great.
Nevertheless, as the Ncore amps measure well, it's not something we even have to think about.
Is there any other specific point I'm missing?
 
The very person who even invented the term 'damping factor' realised the term was meaningless.

This is nonsense. I have said this before, audio engineers especially some Brits live in a very hermetic technical world. Damping factor as in modifying the Q of ANY resonant system be it electrical or mechanical has existed long before them. Damping being the addition of a real loss (usually ends up as heat) to the system hence not modifying it's natural frequency. Real being as in real vs. imaginary (I assume you know how to drive complex maths).
 
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That's when I got seriously interested in class D and joined diyaudio. Hypex UcD, 41Hz TruePath and NewClassD were on my shortlist when I saw the nCore announcement and started this thread.

Now, after nearly 10,000 posts, I finally have my first seriously powerful class D amp!! It is looking sweet, tidy and small compared to my previous amps.

And the small irony after joining DIYAudio... is you ended up buying a ready-made product! :D

That's no jibe as my own nc400 amp is also someone-else's build project too.
 
I obviously didn't spend much time listening, but what I heard I like to describe as uninhibited. Without discolouration, and without hesitation or lag. It was a long time ago when I last heard the old components playing, but I now think music had been held back by that gear with its momentum of inertia... which is now gone!

(Feel free to quote parts of this post on your web site.)

You must mean "without colouration"? Discolouration means that it has no colour so "without discolouration" will mean that it sounds coloured.

Uncoloured, uninhibited and immediate describe the sound of my nc400 amp too. As my first hearing of the ncore (any hypex actually) it really is an eye-opener in comparison to other amps I've had..
 
The standard definition is the ratio of the loudspeaker resistance (purely resistive part of loudspeaker impedance) to the (resistive) output impedance of the amp (and cables), but I would have assumed everybody here is familiar with the definition or at least the concept.

Not in a thread about plug 'n' play amp kits touted as some of the best amps out there! Lot's of non-diyers will have dipped their toes into this kind of diy as their starting point.

Personally I've heard of it but never known what it actually was.. Have a Burmester amp with switchable damping factor too.
 
Look at my byline: It is much humbler than yours:

"Don't take anything I say as an affirmation but as a question."


Regardless of the content of the discussion.. this line must be the funniest forum boast I've heard in a long while! :D

My byline is humbler than yours! Haha :worship: superb..

Sums up the mindset behind having a quote at the bottom of posts and why I would never have one... (Do I win the Most Humble Award for that?).
 
My NC400 in a pair of Hammond boxes, 220mm Deep, 160mm Wide and 51mm High.

If you can fit into smaller box, let me know.

The below photo was taken before the obligatory twisting of output wires.

These cases look quite good as a solution for active speakers whilst wanting the flexibility of monoblocks..

How is the cooling with such a tight fit and what venting have you added (assuming you have)?

I can imagine 3 stacked with spacers or some kind of frame (on their sides perhaps instead of on top of each other) working quite well next to speakers.

And a small question - at what point did the three capacitors turn from red to black, as in how old are your modules? I have a second set of modules to build which I bought second-hand but unused. I was wondering on their age as they also have black capacitors.

528299d1454202360-hypex-ncore-20160121_205411-1178w.jpg
 
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Well duh :). But that wasn;t the question. And really, to match everything perfectly you should measure and tweak where needed anyway. No reason not to, when you're using dsp.

Thanks all who answered. i am indeed, using measurements to match and tweak the levels which may differ due to sensitivity mismatch, driver configuration, etc etc.
Was just confirming if the amp gains were a factor as well. I had checked out the datasheets and did see similar gains between the modules.
 
It's not really a surprise that the NC1200 gets hot.

If you're having an efficiency of around 92%, that means they need to dissipate 100W of heat from a quite small area. It's nothing like the 30W or so class A amp my brother dragged home, using 3055 transistors. That one made a white heat mark on the teak shelf it stood on..

Ideally, I'd like to see something like an NC100 or NC150 module. For a lot of active speakers, 400W is insane overkill - especially for something like a Fountek ribbon tweeter with 20W limit and 97dB/W sensitivity...

Johan-Kr
 
Johan-Kr,
sorry it was not the point. The power loss on IDLE of a SMPS1200 + NC1200 was measured at about 45 W on 4 units.

According to the NC1 200 / SMPS 1200 datasheets it should have been around 25W (9W + 15W).

I'm really satisfied by these products which are working (sounding) very good. I just want to warn that heat dissipation should be a concern in the long time run
 
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