Thanks for sharing. Interesting observations.
I guess that your biamping is "passive" -no active filtering before the ncores?
Looks a lot like the Belgian cases from Hexateq:
Hexateq / Products / Archived Products
They come with a price .. but are magnificent !
Bruno, can you please address this!
I have had a disagreement with the below poster as to Philips owning Hypex. Now he comes back with this. I believe he is mixing things up but I am not an authority on the history of Hypex , UcD and Ncore as it may or may not relate to Philips.
01-26-13: Audiozen
Hifial..the article I read out of Europe was inaccurate portraying Hypex/Ncore being owned by Philips.
Upon further investigation, heres the accurate truth. When Bruno worked for Philips before working for Hypex in 1996, he designed for Philips the Ncore UcD power modules, in which the patents and the Ncore trademark are owned by Philips outright which they have on file in Geneva which covers all the European countries. Bruno today pays Philips an annual licensing rights fee to use the design and the Ncore name in Europe which he originally developed. Bruno beat Philips filing the Ncore patents in the patent office in Washington, D.C. to corner the U.S. market. Bruno's designs are still pulse width modulation. Hypex/Ncore uses a feedback application that Bruno took from John Ulrick of Spectron that was used in the first Spectron amp back in 1974. What Ulrick designed that Bruno utilize's, is an application putting the feedback in the circuit after the output filter rather than before, which eliminates phase shifting in the upper frequencies. Patrik Bostrom, currently the most advanced Class D engineer in Europe and CTO Of Abletec, went beyond Bruno's capability with further advanced Class D engineering and developed recently, a linear loop technology known as AMS, (Adaptive modulation Servo), which is phase shift modulation, eliminating all feedback in the circuits, rather than pulse width modulation, which has been around for forty years. D-Sonic uses power modules from Abletec. The new in house switching module designed by Audio Research, achieves the same results as Abletec.
I have had a disagreement with the below poster as to Philips owning Hypex. Now he comes back with this. I believe he is mixing things up but I am not an authority on the history of Hypex , UcD and Ncore as it may or may not relate to Philips.
01-26-13: Audiozen
Hifial..the article I read out of Europe was inaccurate portraying Hypex/Ncore being owned by Philips.
Upon further investigation, heres the accurate truth. When Bruno worked for Philips before working for Hypex in 1996, he designed for Philips the Ncore UcD power modules, in which the patents and the Ncore trademark are owned by Philips outright which they have on file in Geneva which covers all the European countries. Bruno today pays Philips an annual licensing rights fee to use the design and the Ncore name in Europe which he originally developed. Bruno beat Philips filing the Ncore patents in the patent office in Washington, D.C. to corner the U.S. market. Bruno's designs are still pulse width modulation. Hypex/Ncore uses a feedback application that Bruno took from John Ulrick of Spectron that was used in the first Spectron amp back in 1974. What Ulrick designed that Bruno utilize's, is an application putting the feedback in the circuit after the output filter rather than before, which eliminates phase shifting in the upper frequencies. Patrik Bostrom, currently the most advanced Class D engineer in Europe and CTO Of Abletec, went beyond Bruno's capability with further advanced Class D engineering and developed recently, a linear loop technology known as AMS, (Adaptive modulation Servo), which is phase shift modulation, eliminating all feedback in the circuits, rather than pulse width modulation, which has been around for forty years. D-Sonic uses power modules from Abletec. The new in house switching module designed by Audio Research, achieves the same results as Abletec.
I think he is partially right about History (Bruno worked at Philips before Hypex). For what follows, i notice a lot of errors. First, the author's appreciation of Bruno's capability is purely personal, and should had be said as-it. Bruno is unanimously recognized for one of the best engineers on the market. Second, it is not true to say that AMS 'eliminate all feedback' and is not 'pulse width modulation'. It is class D (PWM) use 20 or 30dB of feedback. All what i have read about Marten's amps looks pretty classical.
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What a bul.s.it
Bruno worked for Philips until 2005, in April or May 2005 Bruno start to work for Hypex, fully employed (not as a consultant or freelancer!). Somewhere in 2002 Bruno started to developed the UcD design. Bruno started to work on NCORE in 2008. We have filed the patent early 2009 and we have filed the NCORE trademark in 2010.
NCORE patent and trademarkt is fully owned by Hypex, there are no other companies involved in Hypex. Both the NCORE patent and trademark are granted in the USA. Thereby Hypex is solely owned by one owner.....
Furthermore, we have more engineers as only Bruno. In total we're with 16 people, half of them is R&D with two DSP specialist.
Jan-Peter van Amerongen
CEO/Owner
Hypex Electronics bv
Bruno worked for Philips until 2005, in April or May 2005 Bruno start to work for Hypex, fully employed (not as a consultant or freelancer!). Somewhere in 2002 Bruno started to developed the UcD design. Bruno started to work on NCORE in 2008. We have filed the patent early 2009 and we have filed the NCORE trademark in 2010.
NCORE patent and trademarkt is fully owned by Hypex, there are no other companies involved in Hypex. Both the NCORE patent and trademark are granted in the USA. Thereby Hypex is solely owned by one owner.....
Furthermore, we have more engineers as only Bruno. In total we're with 16 people, half of them is R&D with two DSP specialist.
Jan-Peter van Amerongen
CEO/Owner
Hypex Electronics bv
Hypex website:
"Hypex was founded in 1996 by Jan-Peter van Amerongen as a supplier of plate amplifiers for live sound loudspeakers. The products drew the attention of hi-fi speaker manufacturers, resulting first in a line of active subwoofer amplifier subassemblies, shortly followed by multichannel units with active cross-over filters for the studio market.
2003 saw the start of a complete migration to class D. For this purpose the newly invented 'Universal Class D' technology was selected. Realising the market potential, Hypex decided not only to use UcD® in end-user products, but also to offer it to the market as general-purpose amplifier modules. The UcD180/400/700 modules have quickly established themselves as the new standard, both in terms of measured and subjective performance.
In 2005, Hypex took the strategic decision to move from a being a technology user to being a technology source and hired UcD's inventor, Bruno Putzeys, to be its chief of R&D. Hypex now serves many big name audiophile brands which previously couldn't find class D amplifiers meeting their stringent sound quality requirements. Standard products now span the range from 20W to 3kW and a line of switch-mode power supplies to match, along with dedicated 100V systems and DSP platforms for active loudspeaker control have been introduced. "
The UCD was invented at Philips and they own the patent, Hypex licenced it in 2003. Ncore has nothing to do with Philips and was designed by Bruno while working at Hypex.
"Hypex was founded in 1996 by Jan-Peter van Amerongen as a supplier of plate amplifiers for live sound loudspeakers. The products drew the attention of hi-fi speaker manufacturers, resulting first in a line of active subwoofer amplifier subassemblies, shortly followed by multichannel units with active cross-over filters for the studio market.
2003 saw the start of a complete migration to class D. For this purpose the newly invented 'Universal Class D' technology was selected. Realising the market potential, Hypex decided not only to use UcD® in end-user products, but also to offer it to the market as general-purpose amplifier modules. The UcD180/400/700 modules have quickly established themselves as the new standard, both in terms of measured and subjective performance.
In 2005, Hypex took the strategic decision to move from a being a technology user to being a technology source and hired UcD's inventor, Bruno Putzeys, to be its chief of R&D. Hypex now serves many big name audiophile brands which previously couldn't find class D amplifiers meeting their stringent sound quality requirements. Standard products now span the range from 20W to 3kW and a line of switch-mode power supplies to match, along with dedicated 100V systems and DSP platforms for active loudspeaker control have been introduced. "
The UCD was invented at Philips and they own the patent, Hypex licenced it in 2003. Ncore has nothing to do with Philips and was designed by Bruno while working at Hypex.
The amp that Patrik has developed is intereresting. It might be a worthy competitor to Ncore. There may be another one as well, possible even better, but which hasn't been put on the market yet. Not sure if Abletec want to release it.
My question is. Can an amp sound more transparent then Ncore or are we only talking about improved measurments. The future should tell us.
Ncore is a wonderful amp that put my search at ease. I do wish Hypex would release a Ncore with less watts though. I don't need 200W in an active system with a high sensitive compression tweeter.
Bruno explained why this is not sensible a couple of hundred pages ago. Main points were that a lower power amp would have higher distortion, and would not be any less expensive. It would not have lower noise either, so there is really nothing to gain ...
Ok. Thank you for the information.
Think I will stick to UcD for my hometheater speakers then. Too expensive with Ncore everywhere.
looks like he used the Star Trek technobabble generator: Technobabble Generator
I'm currently designing a verteron neutrino device, based on the rapid particle phenomenon, employing thermal nano-capacitor technology in order to achieve a perfect ionic particle harmonic.
so, class D gurus... better watch out.
Worked on that for a while. The modulated alternating actuator and the reciprocating frequency controller don't get along very well unless you get the oscillating frequency matrix right. So, make sure you double-check those numbers before applying power.
And don't forget the series resistor!
+1
Series resistors are very important in a oscillating frequency matrix, if not used the rapid particles will start to move upwards instead of sideways!
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