Welcome to Diyaudio Disbeliever. Interesting first post.
No facts in it but still thank you for sharing your opinion and personal experience.
Enjoy your stay!
No facts in it but still thank you for sharing your opinion and personal experience.
Enjoy your stay!
You talking about price over performance, and there is way more class D amp over the ncore on that point 😉
We cannot compare Devialet to NCore because the latter is just a power amplifier module and the former is an integrated amplifier with D/A and A/D functionality among other things.
Well...the Hypex Ncore module that claims 200W/8Ω and 400W/4Ω costs about 425USD (325EUR), plus another ~235USD (180EUR) for the matching PS. Plus shipping and (if applicable) duties. To that one needs to add a case, I/O jacks, gain controls, etc.
A Peavey IPR-1600, probably the most modern amp commercially available, costs about 300USD including case (a hideous-looking one, but still), a power supply, balanced I/O, and gain controls. (And, of course, two channels.) offers a little more power (tested to deliver 270W*2 into 8.6Ω, and 480W*2 into 4.5Ω) and sounds like the proverbial straight wire with gain.
So, assuming the Peavey's case is worth nothing and its I/O jacks are worth $1 (perhaps optimistic, admittedly), and given that audio DIY has low economies of scale (whereas a mainstream amp has much cost reduction due to production volume) one would reasonably expect the raw parts for basically half of one to cost (a sig consisting of a single-channel module and appropriate PS to cost about $200 total.
The usual hifimediy, 41hertz, Arjen Helder and some more...
Let's be clear, I'm not telling you they sound better than the ncore (I really hope ncore sounds better for that price) but for 5/6 times the price it's seems hard to me that ncore sounds 6 times better.
Hypex build really good stuff but the price is a bit too high compared to some other amps on the market. Of course that's only my opinion 😉
And there are plenty of L20 boards on ebay that you can buy for a song but you get what you pay for I suppose !!
No, because only because I would only drive B&W 800's to the curb. They aren't good enough for me. They're not high-fidelity speakers. Just look at the power response!
But would I drive my big Tannoys, or other similarly high-fidelity speakers (Revel, KEF Reference, etc.) with them? Sure, why not?
I did not buy the B&W 804D speakers because Hi-Fi World measurement states tweeter output was consistently high, peaking up by + 6dB around 12kHz. This will produce audible brightness in the treble, even a treble sting. HF output above 3 kHz was generally strong from the 804D giving good detailing, but a bright sound balance. HF output from the 804D borders on the excessive for a so called high fidelity loudspeaker. It is far from accurate.
Not relevant to the question, which is one of fidelity to the source material. It's quite unsophisticated to assume that price and quality share anything but the very weakest of correlations.
That said, if you wish to look up the prices of Tannoy and KEF flagships, you are welcome to do so.
The B&W's would be poor-sounding speakers even if they were priced at $300. Beautifully crafted for the money, and with deeper bass extension than most, but poor-sounding compared to the competition at that price point. There are speakers in that range with much smoother response, and much less pattern discontinuity in the midrange.
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Interestingly, I've been tinkering with Class D/B hybrid circuits for a while now. I built a prototype which was much along the lines of Devialet patent (from a superficial glance at the document, anyway). Needless to say it was awfull - very little efficiency saving and some nasty instabilities - however I'm refusing to give up on the idea just yet.
I was atracted to the concept because of the difficulties of building a pure class-D amp for the ametuer builder - the very high switching frequencies of course mean the circuits are very sensitive to layout and therefore hard to lash up on the bench & prototype. Out of the range of my skils and facilities, at least.
The concept is to use a relatively low switching frequency (say, just ultrasonic). This would make design relatively easy and also reduce switching losses. Music programme material of course lends it self to this kind of aproach as most of the power is delivered at low frequencies - if the amplifier efficiency falls off as frequency increases (as it would) that's not too much bother. In fact, the amp probably doesn't even need to deliver its full swing at higher frequencies.
I should add that my intended application is PA, not HiFi, so a significant efficiency boost would be very worth while, but audio quality is not the prime concern.
If I get any interesting results, I'll post them here (even if it's only a photo of a small fire on my bench).
I was atracted to the concept because of the difficulties of building a pure class-D amp for the ametuer builder - the very high switching frequencies of course mean the circuits are very sensitive to layout and therefore hard to lash up on the bench & prototype. Out of the range of my skils and facilities, at least.
The concept is to use a relatively low switching frequency (say, just ultrasonic). This would make design relatively easy and also reduce switching losses. Music programme material of course lends it self to this kind of aproach as most of the power is delivered at low frequencies - if the amplifier efficiency falls off as frequency increases (as it would) that's not too much bother. In fact, the amp probably doesn't even need to deliver its full swing at higher frequencies.
I should add that my intended application is PA, not HiFi, so a significant efficiency boost would be very worth while, but audio quality is not the prime concern.
If I get any interesting results, I'll post them here (even if it's only a photo of a small fire on my bench).
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