That drives me insane when she does that, soon gets a firm ticking off! Dr Dre would not be allowed through the threshold so a non issue!
Here is the board in action complete with glowing Hypex Voltage Regs and Sparkos Labs Op Amps. Given the performance of the Op Amp I'm going to try there Voltage regulators also.
Better watch it. The twists may not be tight enough on the speaker output wires for Julf. I can just imagine the interference it's probably picking up
Funny, I have to say in my defence I've yanked it on and off the fastons a few times.
It will also be interesting to see if anybody in the forth coming tests will prefer the Burson.
I have ordered some of both and they are nearly the same cost so no axe to grind. In fact I really wish I liked the Burson they look so dammed good! And they come so well packed in a little presentation box, not that my customers would see that. Any way I must get some sleep have some milling and building to do tomorrow.
It will also be interesting to see if anybody in the forth coming tests will prefer the Burson.
I have ordered some of both and they are nearly the same cost so no axe to grind. In fact I really wish I liked the Burson they look so dammed good! And they come so well packed in a little presentation box, not that my customers would see that. Any way I must get some sleep have some milling and building to do tomorrow.
Give them about 100 hours. Leave it on at low levels around the clock. They get better.
I stumbled on to this thread at around page 800 something, after googling after god remembers what. I just can't help myself, have to give all you people my thumbs up. While the back and forth bickering has kept it entertaining, the knowledge passed has been really educational. I have to say that it now has gotten very interesting for the layman reader i represent.
Keep up the good work Boggit! I think you are sitting on gold, just hang in there!
As a father of three small kids, renovating our house at night and working all day I can't find the time to even look at a soldering iron. The "tweakable" input board is a perfekt produkt for the extreamely little time I'm allowed to play around with how my music is presented.
Now I just have to finish the down stairs to be able to unbox my system again. New amps will be my reward
Keep up the good work Boggit! I think you are sitting on gold, just hang in there!
As a father of three small kids, renovating our house at night and working all day I can't find the time to even look at a soldering iron. The "tweakable" input board is a perfekt produkt for the extreamely little time I'm allowed to play around with how my music is presented.
Now I just have to finish the down stairs
to be able to unbox my system again. New amps will be my reward Better watch it. The twists may not be tight enough on the speaker output wires for Julf. I can just imagine the interference it's probably picking up
Actually the tightness isn't anywhere as important as the evenness and symmetry - and minimizing the area of any loops. The issue with the nc400 is that it is all too tempting to have the output leads go out in opposed directions, leading to a rather large loop that works all too well as a loop antenna.
Nord NC500 Monoblocks
I was going to post this last Friday but due UPS sending my monoblocks in the wrong direction and not putting things right quickly there was a delay in receiving them.
I had been away from home for sometime and as soon as I returned the Nord NC500 mono blocks were despatched on a next day delivery as promised, but UPS sent them all over the country and I received them 3 days late.
Anyway they were very well packed (just as well) for transit in very good quality boxes and eventually arrived safely.
I must say I am very pleased with the look and the finish.
Workmanship is of a very high standard inside and out, mine are black cases.
Speaker binding posts are very solid, they and the XLR connectors are very good quality.
As I said before they are made by Nord - IQ Speakers, the price I paid for two of them is £1,014 including delivery and I consider this to be a real bargain.
Plugged them in switched on and everything worked fine, no hum or hiss silence when nothing playing just as it should be.
So how do they sound well I have not heard my favourite music sound this good before.
They are neutral, very detailed, clean sounding and have exceptionally good bass control. The clarity is outstanding and there are subtle details in the music that I had not noticed before.
My favourite violin concertos and orchestral music sound excellent.
Also because of the power available the sound seems effortless and the sound stage is huge.
I am not very good at describing sound, all I can say is that I believe these amplifiers give exceptionally good performance and at a very reasonable cost.
The Nord model that I have is fitted with the Hypex input buffers and LM4562 op amps which I believe are the same as fitted to the Acoustic Imagery ATSAH 500 mono blocks that I was originally thinking of buying. This is before I discovered the Nord mono blocks at a considerably lower price.
A full review of the Acoustic Imagery amplifiers was published in another well known Hi Fi magazine recently and they were highly rated I am assuming that mine sound the same.
On the subject of sound quality when I purchased my mono blocks I knew that Nord would be offering uprated buffers with high quality discrete op amps at a later date but I did not want to wait the extra 4/5 weeks for delivery and so purchased the amplifiers with the standard Hypex buffers.
I did want the upgrade as I have heard that it makes a difference but did not want to wait so I arranged with IQ Speakers to have the uprated parts sent to me at a later date.
The uprated buffers will be available soon and I hope I have made the right decision to buy them as I am pretty happy with these monoblocks as they are.
On the other hand I can just about afford it so why not give it a try.
I will be fitting them myself as it is quite a simple job. IQ would of course do this for you in fact Colin at IQ offered to come to my home at no cost and I live about 100 miles away but I told him not to worry as I have done many similar tasks in the past and that I was happy to do it.
At the moment I will be getting the uprated input buffers fitted with Burson V5 but Nord are very kindly also sending me the Sparkos discrete op amps to compare. With either I hope to have another step up in detail and sound quality thus for a small extra cost I will be turning the basic Nord monoblocks into even greater giant killers.
I Will give you further info on how they sound after fitting the uprated input buffers.
Even with the extra cost for the uprated buffers the cost is still well under the Acoustic Imagery price and all the other manufacturers using the NC500 modules.
I was going to post this last Friday but due UPS sending my monoblocks in the wrong direction and not putting things right quickly there was a delay in receiving them.
I had been away from home for sometime and as soon as I returned the Nord NC500 mono blocks were despatched on a next day delivery as promised, but UPS sent them all over the country and I received them 3 days late.
Anyway they were very well packed (just as well) for transit in very good quality boxes and eventually arrived safely.
I must say I am very pleased with the look and the finish.
Workmanship is of a very high standard inside and out, mine are black cases.
Speaker binding posts are very solid, they and the XLR connectors are very good quality.
As I said before they are made by Nord - IQ Speakers, the price I paid for two of them is £1,014 including delivery and I consider this to be a real bargain.
Plugged them in switched on and everything worked fine, no hum or hiss silence when nothing playing just as it should be.
So how do they sound well I have not heard my favourite music sound this good before.
They are neutral, very detailed, clean sounding and have exceptionally good bass control. The clarity is outstanding and there are subtle details in the music that I had not noticed before.
My favourite violin concertos and orchestral music sound excellent.
Also because of the power available the sound seems effortless and the sound stage is huge.
I am not very good at describing sound, all I can say is that I believe these amplifiers give exceptionally good performance and at a very reasonable cost.
The Nord model that I have is fitted with the Hypex input buffers and LM4562 op amps which I believe are the same as fitted to the Acoustic Imagery ATSAH 500 mono blocks that I was originally thinking of buying. This is before I discovered the Nord mono blocks at a considerably lower price.
A full review of the Acoustic Imagery amplifiers was published in another well known Hi Fi magazine recently and they were highly rated I am assuming that mine sound the same.
On the subject of sound quality when I purchased my mono blocks I knew that Nord would be offering uprated buffers with high quality discrete op amps at a later date but I did not want to wait the extra 4/5 weeks for delivery and so purchased the amplifiers with the standard Hypex buffers.
I did want the upgrade as I have heard that it makes a difference but did not want to wait so I arranged with IQ Speakers to have the uprated parts sent to me at a later date.
The uprated buffers will be available soon and I hope I have made the right decision to buy them as I am pretty happy with these monoblocks as they are.
On the other hand I can just about afford it so why not give it a try.
I will be fitting them myself as it is quite a simple job. IQ would of course do this for you in fact Colin at IQ offered to come to my home at no cost and I live about 100 miles away but I told him not to worry as I have done many similar tasks in the past and that I was happy to do it.
At the moment I will be getting the uprated input buffers fitted with Burson V5 but Nord are very kindly also sending me the Sparkos discrete op amps to compare. With either I hope to have another step up in detail and sound quality thus for a small extra cost I will be turning the basic Nord monoblocks into even greater giant killers.
I Will give you further info on how they sound after fitting the uprated input buffers.
Even with the extra cost for the uprated buffers the cost is still well under the Acoustic Imagery price and all the other manufacturers using the NC500 modules.
Thanks for sharing
How may I ask are you finding the treble so far?
What Amplifier/s did you have before and what speakers too?
How may I ask are you finding the treble so far?
What Amplifier/s did you have before and what speakers too?
My Speakers are Troels Gravesen designed Illumina 66 floorstanders which are probably equivalent of paying at least £ 6,000 so very good quality. They use Scan Speak top of the range drivers like Gamut speakers.Thanks for sharing
How may I ask are you finding the treble so far?
What Amplifier/s did you have before and what speakers too?
CD player is Audiolab CDQ8200. Amplifier was previously BK Electronics Mosfet power modules. Which did not sound quite natural to me.
Treble is now very natural but I would not say bright although I'm sure I will find a couple of Cds that dont do to well as the detail in the sound is amazing and a poor recording will show up as poor.
It will be interesting to see how the uprated buffers sound.
Everything sounds pretty natural now so it will be interesting to hear the Sparkos
Indeed the one and the same Mr Abrahamsen the Electrocompaniet founder and designer.
And he based his design on the research work of Matti Otala (of TIM fame), in fact the first amp was called "The Otala Amplifier". A great example of how rigorous scientific research (rather than random audiophile hearsay and tweaking) leads to real improvements - just like with the ncores. Too bad the Otala work was then (wrongly) used by the audiophile world to justify the old wive's tale about feedback being bad in general - something Bruno had to fight against.
Have you ordered the Nord NC 500s yet?
I'm quite sure you would be pleased if you do.
This applies to anyone else thinking of doing so.
Been one hell of a day! Input buffer board rev B done all working and tested OK
On way back to me for evaluation.
First production Nord Ones made from start to finish for first customer serial no 1001
On test ready for shipment tomorrow. To say I'm knackered but over the moon is an understatement.
Boggit, given you have reworked the buffer PCB why don't you post the circuit schematic? I would also spend some time thinking about better, low noise designs rather than just trialing drop in replacements for the 4562. There's a lot to be gained before even stepping into discrete opamp design.
(I am in the process of doing a balanced input board that uses 3 x quad 4562 per channel - yes, the equivalent of 6 LM4562 per channel - using a design by Self.)
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