Hypex nCore NC122MP grey sounding

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Dear all,

I have recently bought a NC122MP mounted in a nice box from a French shop.
The amplifier has been on for 8 days now and is playing daily.
It has some outstanding qualities but the instrumental colours are very pale.
Also it is very bright, I had to use my warmest cable, a vd Hul MC gold, to tame it a little.

From my experience with a Pascal S Pro 2 I know that it can take a long time (months!) before it sounds right, meaning music comes out with realistic (recording and source permitting) timbres to all instruments and voices.

Does anyone know how long the NC122MP needs to burn in?
As I have the possibility to return it to the shop within 14 working days I would like to know.

Best regards and a great weekend to all !
 
Hi Khron, thank you for your answer but I don`t think your statement holds true.
I my experience with my Pascal S-Pro2 it made a great difference not only to its previous state but also compared with other amplifiers.
The Hypex sounds quite the same after 9 days so my ears/brain did not adjust it still sounds bright and somewhat grey.
 
Hi Abraxalito, thank you for your answer, it sounds like that also when the source is a record player driving a tube pre- amplifier.
In a way it sound like it suppresses the harmonic content of the music leaving strong fundamentals in place or adding 3rd harmonics.

It could be sensitive to picking up high frequencies from other sources though.
 
The 'greying out of tonal colours' description is how I hear many S-D DACs, when compared with multibit DACs. So I would suggest you're experiencing noise modulation - could there be a fault with the unit? I'd primarily suspect the power supply of the signal processing stages (modulator).
 
It is funny that you have Marco Polo in your member description as I live an hour away from where he was born in Sines.
I will try an other mains cable a shielded one to see if it makes a difference to the sound.
I am hoping that someone with experience with this new series of Hypex nC MP series will tell chime in.
 
Hi Analog_Sa, thank you for your reply,you might have a point there!
Near Lisbon?

I have been listening to my modified Leak ST20 for many years but due to a move
to a smaller room and smaller speakers, Dynaudio Emit 10, a new power amplifier

was needed...
Previous speakers were Audio Note AN-E`s and that combination sounded very good.
 
vivid saturated colours... I do know a couple of people with synethesia but other than that I can't relate to how those words translate to audio. "Detail" I can understand - harmonal tones might be better portrayed and easier to hear. I'd guess though that anything that might be vivid and saturated in some kind of tonal "colour" would be just making the mid-range louder for human consumption vs accuracy.

Hypex amps seem pretty non-coloured in that they both have flat responses in output and that speaker impedence over the response effect them less than most amps too .

Before the 14 days is up, speak to them directly and maybe organise a replacement to check if it's a faulty board. Anyway, if you're unsure, still exercise that 14 day return and re-order if you still want to...
 
Thank you NATDBERG, If by non-coloured you mean not adding colour yes.
But in this case it seems that colours are subtracted by the amplifier or to put it in an other way, they are not amplified.
What I would like to explain is really simple and mostly taken for granted, the sounds that define various instruments.The nylon stringed guitar sounds different from its steel stringed version due to the fact that they are different in harmonic(al) structure.
A Zildjan cymbal and a Paiste cymbal of the same size and thickness sound quite different to each other for the same reason.
If an amplifier fails to make those differences audible it is not a good one and is subtrackting harmonic(al) details.
Thank you for you suggestion to send the NC122MP back, I will do that soon as it makes my teeth hurt sometimes...
 
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TNT

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But in this case it seems that colours are subtracted by the amplifier or to put it in an other way, they are not amplified.

Still, maybe this is in comparison with your old, maybe coloured, amp. Sometimes when one exchange a component for a technically better one, the system performance may actually go worse on a whole and the cause for this is some compensation for the fault in other components.

What could that be in your case - speakers?

//
 
They sound dull and flat? Well, they maybe finally sound linearly from top to bottom behaving like piece of wire with amplification rather than distorting interface to your loudspeaker, leaving your ears alone without habits to listening to coloured and distorted sound? Or maybe this is mental projection of this particular french enclosure which probably also has bright, shiny finish colour, blue LED and sharp, straight edges (only guessing)? Yes, synaesthesia is good word to describe it but no offence, it is rare gift and totally nothing wrong with it!


Or maybe you're using single-ended interconnection from source to amp with so-called SE-balanced converter inside of said amp enclosure this is probable source of problem nailed here. Thankfully Gold Van del Huls are goldish in their finish colour so it's in fact indeed warms-up the sound a bit.. Please stick to AES48-2005 regulations referring to interconnection scheme between audio equipment to stop never-ending problems with sound coloration resulting from improper connection schemes and suspicious-quality symmetrizing circuits alongside with well-designed amps - it is pure evil of audiophile world still, after straight 13 long years excusing people of using those all RCA fancy cables.


mandatory reading
 
Maybe a picture of the inside could be of some help...
This item must be the audiophonics pa-s125nc. There is a review link in their webpage. The review in French is not over enthusiast if I understand right. Very sad, as I just about to buy one....
 

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