No problem. My setup has 4 NC400's sharing 2 SMPS600's per channel, paired so that one SMPS600 powers one woofer amp and the mid amp, the other SMPS600 powers the other woofer amp and the tweeter amp (my speakers are Linn Isobariks, with 2 woofers, 2 mids and 2 tweeters per box). Just like you, I don't ever need more than maybe 100W per amp, but it is nice to have the headroom.
Thanks, guys.
I'm planning to run a capacitor on the tweeters to block DC. Is there anything else I need to protect against if I go with the NC400 modules? Any chance of turn on thump or something else that might damage my nice drivers?
-Chris
On the input or output?
Only if your source puts out a significant DC component, and even then only if you switch on your source after you switch on your amps.
You mean the input to or output from the amp, right? I plan to have a cap in series with the tweeter, after the amp. Not sure of the value yet but large enough to not add any meaningful high pass filtering to the tweeter.
I'm going to go straight from the outputs of my multi channel DAC to the amp. Since my DAC only has RCA out I plan to use adapters on that end and shielded cable from the adapters to the amp. Just as you described a few pages back and Bruno describes early in this thread.
I actually have no idea if my DAC outputs have any DC. I'm guessing nothing significant but now I want to figure that out. I'm pretty religious about turning my amps on last and off first but I'm not quite sure yet how I will actually turn these on and off.
I'm thinking of mounting them to the back of the speakers I'm building. I don't have anything that supplies a turn on signal since my system is PC based. I might just start with a wall wart, a switch on my desk, and some relays to apply power to the remote on the pro amp for my woofers while removing power from the Hypex standby when I want everything on. Then the opposite of that to turn amps off or put them into standby.
-Chris
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Yes - having the cap on the output of the amp provides more protection from a misbehaving amp, but the advantage of a cap on the amp input is that you can use much smaller capacitances.
Simple to measure with any decent (digital) voltage meter / multimeter.
If you want to get really fancy, you could get a relay control board with a USB interface, and turn the system on and off with software, but then you get into the wonderful world of "my PC crashed, so now I can't turn off my stereo"...
What does a cap on the input to the amp buy me? Is it just eliminating any DC component from my DAC output?
[QUOTE
Simple to measure with any decent (digital) voltage meter / multimeter.
If you want to get really fancy, you could get a relay control board with a USB interface, and turn the system on and off with software, but then you get into the wonderful world of "my PC crashed, so now I can't turn off my stereo"...
[/QUOTE]I have a pretty decent DMM so I'll give it a measure when I get a chance.
I read some discussion early in the thread where you were looking for signal cables with extra conductors for your standby voltage. What did you end up doing?
Thanks,
Chris
Apparently I looked right over this response the other day. I do plan to run a cap after the amp, regardless of how good the protection circuitry is.
-Chris
SMPS600 > two NC400 200/400 @ 8/4 Ohm, 2 Ohm minimum, one third duty cycle (not RMS), either well suited or not to drive your unknown load impedance.
One person in one room playing program X may need only 10W. Using the same speaker, another person in another room playing program Y may need 500W. The best/most accurate predictor of power needs is the subject.
I built two NC400BTL/bridged tied load mono blocs, 400/800/1200W @ 8/4/2 Ohm, 1 Ohm minimum. The buyer told me he shorted the speaker outputs for about thirty seconds. Nothing, including the fuse, was harmed.
NC400 may be the most bullet proof amp extant.
My tweeters are 4 Ohm and about 90DB efficiency. My mids are two 8 Ohm drivers in parallel so 4 Ohms for the amp and about 95 DB efficiency, before baffle step loss is figured in.
-Chris
That sounds like the output power figures from the data sheet multiplied by 2, but shouldn't bridging quadruple the power instead of doubling it? And the minimum load will be 2 ohms, not 1 ohm, if bridged.
This is like getting expensive optics for a camera and then put a 20 USD protection "filter" on it permanently. I say, give the glass a chance.
//
I won't use a cheap capacitor but I do like the idea of avoiding the phase shift it will create. Especially since I'll be running linear phase crossovers done in DSP.
But I'm paranoid about damaging my beryllium tweeters. I'm worried as much about me doing something dumb as the amp causing damage.
-Chris
Would anyone happen to have Sketchup models of the NC400 and SMPS600?
I downloaded the 3D drawings for both from Hypex and used a trial version of a Sketchup extension to import them. But the NC400 model ended up being 50MB after importing and the SMPS600 model is almost 30MB.
Even on a powerful desktop PC with a bunch of memory that makes them slow to manipulate in Sketchup.
I'll spend some time removing detail from them if I have to but thought I would ask if anyone has a better model.
Thanks,
Chris
I downloaded the 3D drawings for both from Hypex and used a trial version of a Sketchup extension to import them. But the NC400 model ended up being 50MB after importing and the SMPS600 model is almost 30MB.
Even on a powerful desktop PC with a bunch of memory that makes them slow to manipulate in Sketchup.
I'll spend some time removing detail from them if I have to but thought I would ask if anyone has a better model.
Thanks,
Chris
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