You are right Sir Julf ...even when I listen to a 12Khz sweep, I think to myself it's a frequency so high that I'm not sure I would really miss it ;-)
The whole DSD argument of frequencies farther up the chain influencing sonics that CD cannot, seems a bit ridiculous...to me, that is
That's why people seriously advocating and working with DSD don't make that argument.
Some of the top DSD A/D and D/A converters only state bandwidth to 40Khz, same as the 96KHz specs on the same converters.
DSD is advocated for other reasons like impulse response and negating negatives effects of A/D anti-alias filters.
So finally got around to testing the Nord input boards. It was only subjective testing. For some reason the noise floor is higher than my modded Hypex boards. With the Sparko's I can hear an audible hiss out of the speakers, but dead silence with the Sparko's in my modded Hypex boards. With the Sonic imagery's there's tons of noise. The boards will need to be reworked to be compatible with them for sure.
As far as sound, if you can get past the background hiss, the Sonic's are far better. The Sparko's sound dull in comparison. But still both very good. So I'd say stick to the Sparko's, or Burson's for now.
As far as sound, if you can get past the background hiss, the Sonic's are far better. The Sparko's sound dull in comparison. But still both very good. So I'd say stick to the Sparko's, or Burson's for now.
Over double the price of the Nords 500's with OEM Hypex buffer board. But they are much harder to come by.
The first thing I checked after fitting the Nord boards was for hiss and hum and with either Burson or Sparkos I heard silence
It's still quite a lot of money for something with a 1 year warranty ...I would need to listen first because if Julf is right and they sound the same, only better at insane volumes...I'm not that impressed, unless some wonder DAC changed my tune because these don't sound much better than TAG McLaren amplifiers to my ears, which can be had for around £1000-1600 used
IMO that is about what nc1200 should cost, under £3K
Did not realise that l was trying to get a comparison in price between the NC500 new and the Tag. Ti33er said they don't sound much better than the Tag which means they are better and I would guess cheaper when new. What more can you ask for.
the Tag lived on as the audiolab 8200MB which are £1000 each. So twice the price of the NC500.
NC1200 in pretty skirts is 10x that of course.
NC1200 in pretty skirts is 10x that of course.
That is correct Sir, but the 8200MB unfortunately fell victim to Chinese cost cutting and they put half the transformer size in their clone (amongst other cost cutting techniques) and sound a bit dull by comparison :-( ...thin copper tracking too. Rumour has it Mr Self had his hand in the original design.
New, the TAG McLaren 250MR were £2200 RRP each, but were had around £1600-1800 towards their demise in 2005 ...once serviced, after all this time they are still very nice amps
I would hope with modern advancement that technology becomes cheaper, so to me, Class D should really be the affordable good Amplifier in this day and age - I bet HYPEX would sell a ton more if they were sub £3000
New, the TAG McLaren 250MR were £2200 RRP each, but were had around £1600-1800 towards their demise in 2005 ...once serviced, after all this time they are still very nice amps
I would hope with modern advancement that technology becomes cheaper, so to me, Class D should really be the affordable good Amplifier in this day and age - I bet HYPEX would sell a ton more if they were sub £3000
The NC500 IS sub £3000. You can buy 6 channels for £3000. How is that not affordable good amplifier?
The high end market has completely changed since 2002 time frame. You cannot compare prices from 15 years ago to today expect for low and mid price stuff.
The NC1200 was conceived for OEMs in the £10K amplifier market.
nCore amps are very cheap and Boggit's Nord One Up is an absolute bargain. nc1200 based amps are aimed towards HE markets. If an amp costs less than 5k in HE markets it will get less interest than if it costs more than 10k. And along with cool brand names like Jeff Rowland nCore amp can cost more than 60k.
Amps are priced according to brands and markets, not according to BOM or datasheet. The performance is just something that enables the possibilities and interest of different OEMs. The prices are set by the OEMs. If they think that the nCore amp is better than than their previous creation, why should they sell it cheaper to their loyal customers.
If you tried some wonder dac and maybe also some wonder speakers, you'd maybe notice how good these nCore based amps really are.
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The nc1200's are in the flagship Jeff Rowland which cost around $ 70k for a pair of monoblocks.
Jan
Jan
How efficient are your speakers? With the Sparko's there's not much hiss. But I can hear some with my ear to the speaker. I hear nothing with the Hypex boards.
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