To Boggit and bavmike:
If you have noise problems being an issue, bring your amp to a qualified technician and have the problem located and dealt with.
Not doing this instead of op amp rolling Ikea style is not very professional, and you do these amps commercially don't you?
By the way this discussion should be on the NC500 thread IMO, not here.
If you have noise problems being an issue, bring your amp to a qualified technician and have the problem located and dealt with.
Not doing this instead of op amp rolling Ikea style is not very professional, and you do these amps commercially don't you?
By the way this discussion should be on the NC500 thread IMO, not here.
It's not an noise issue. It's just a very low level of noise. Even with the LM4562 in place.
Well this is the Ncore thread. We are talking about Ncore amps. 3/4 of the rest of the thread isn't even about Ncores at all. The point is the Hypex board is dead silent, and when you pop the same opamp in the other board, it's not dead silent. So there's obviously a reason for that. It wasn't what I was expecting as I thought it was the same circuit.
As you have both boards and can view the typology and components on each, what are the differences? I thought Boggit used the Hypex board layout and modified it only to socket the op amp. Presumably he didn't skimp on component selection as well. (Perhaps Boggit can comment.)
Huh?
My Pass Labs X150.5 Class A/B amp dissipates almost 250 watts at idle, and needs to be powered on for at least an hour (better overnight) to sound it's best. My NC-400 DIY amp is on 24/7, and uses way less power...
My Pass Labs X150.5 Class A/B amp dissipates almost 250 watts at idle, and needs to be powered on for at least an hour (better overnight) to sound it's best. My NC-400 DIY amp is on 24/7, and uses way less power...
Your Pass Labs is rich A/B with quite a bit of class A power; I was not referring to amplifiers like yours but more to low idle current A/B amplifiers with class A power under 1 watt.
Class G/H amplifiers also do not take much power at idle.
Class D amps are the champions in this aspect, no doubt.
Class G/H amplifiers also do not take much power at idle.
Class D amps are the champions in this aspect, no doubt.
All said, being energy-friendly as I can (as I look at the massively power sucking fume hood across the lab), unplugging any amp when not in use gets my vote. Less so if you're in a climate where you need winter heating, and infinitely more so if you use AC in the summer.
IMO, any amp that notably changes in sound as it arrives at thermal equilibrium seems incorrectly biased.
IMO, any amp that notably changes in sound as it arrives at thermal equilibrium seems incorrectly biased.
Tbh, Bruno made too clever design with the DIY version. It's more like statement or present for the DIY community". There seems to be basically one mod for nc400 (things not mentioned in the manual).
1) Removing/changing gain resistor R141
And two tweaks:
1) Biwiring and double twisting the speaker wire.
2) Calibrating the input and output and the overvoltage .
Please tell me if i missed any?
Everything else that i have read of (tuning the caps etc)...could make it worse. With nc500 with custom input board, there is at least one more mod available. Maybe even more.
1) Removing/changing gain resistor R141
And two tweaks:
1) Biwiring and double twisting the speaker wire.
2) Calibrating the input and output and the overvoltage .
Please tell me if i missed any?
Everything else that i have read of (tuning the caps etc)...could make it worse. With nc500 with custom input board, there is at least one more mod available. Maybe even more.
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The NC500 is a modders dream amp. And can be had for dirt cheap. The Non-DIY community couldn't care less what the DIY guys are doing anyways. So any modding going on around here by a small handful of people, won't effect any sales to the general audiophile community.
I've been monitoring this thread for over a month. It is clearly a DIY thread based on a non-retail module from a company that does make a special effort to acknowledge DIYers. For this reason I've moved the thread in to the DIY area in the Class D Amp forums.
We have various threads about modding commercial products, the Oppo 105 as an example, but we generally don't allow threads promoting a retail product in the DIY area, so having this thread in the DIY section means that Mr. Boggit, who is clearly sincerely enthused about his product, is even more out of place discussing this retail product here since it is now (suddenly) in the DIY category. There is no doubt that Nord are retail products so I've moved all posts that promote them, ie posts which comment on their sound quality or construction, appearance, or the process of making them, to the thread that Boggit created for this purpose in the Vendor's Bazaar area, titled the "Hypex Ncore NC500 Build"
It's here and I hope you all subscribe, as it is quite interesting in its own right:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/vendors-bazaar/281361-hypex-ncore-nc500-build.html
Of course Boggit could also obtain a Commercial Area Forum where he could have various threads concerning his products. I left the posts from him and others in this thread which discussed using Hypex modules in general, and the discussion of front ends, buffers, power supplies etc., as these are more generally applicable so fine for anyone to discuss. It's fine to discuss all Hypex modules such as the NC 400 and 500 here as well as the power supplies and input stages, as people will for one reason or another, end up with them, and their characteristics and issues are quite similar.
So please post in the appropriate thread from now on. Thanks.
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That is of course a modification, but it only affects the gain, not the sound quality (OK, theoretically increasing the feedback might improve the performance, but...).
Not sure the twisting of the wire qualifies as a "tweak". It is just good practice, just like the ground/earth connection practices that are documented in the hypex data sheet - and should probably have been documented in the same way in the data sheet.
What do you mean with biwiring?
I assume you are talking about the DC bias and the overvoltage protection trigger adjustments? Again they don't affect the sound, and seems it isn't needed except on a few out-of-tolerance boards.
Indeed. So they do qualify as proper "tweaks"
Better caps= better sound, as always, no cap is perfect
thats of course not true if you are among those who don't believe ( can't hear, or did not ABX test) that caps do sound different
Let me edit that for you
How about actually looking at what function the cap performs, what characteristics are relevant in that function, and what possible effect those characteristics have on the sound before using the word "always"?
It is like saying "better mains plug = better sound". Yes, sometimes, in some special cases, but mostly not.
How about actually looking at what function the cap performs, what characteristics are relevant in that function, and what possible effect those characteristics have on the sound before using the word "always"?
It is like saying "better mains plug = better sound". Yes, sometimes, in some special cases, but mostly not.
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