NC 400 vs 1200
I actually asked Bruno Putzeys at the Munich High End about that with regard to his new Mola Mola amps which are based on the NC 1200. He said that he incorporated the best aspects of 1200 and 400 in it, e.g. he didn't use the Op-amp of the 1200 OEM version for the input stage but designed a discreet version modelled on the NC400. On the other hand he said that besides offering more power the parts on the amp board had more space on the Mola Mola/1200 design and where therefor less prone to influence one another.
I actually asked Bruno Putzeys at the Munich High End about that with regard to his new Mola Mola amps which are based on the NC 1200. He said that he incorporated the best aspects of 1200 and 400 in it, e.g. he didn't use the Op-amp of the 1200 OEM version for the input stage but designed a discreet version modelled on the NC400. On the other hand he said that besides offering more power the parts on the amp board had more space on the Mola Mola/1200 design and where therefor less prone to influence one another.
Previous message does not match well with following report from on-site tuning of Mola-Mola amplifier at GTT Audio.
Source: Mola Mola Caused A Buzz In Munich |
Source: Mola Mola Caused A Buzz In Munich |
Sounds like the usual high-end audiophile stuff - sighted observations using fluffy touchy-feely words. While they might be entertaining reading, they are somewhat useless if you want to know anything about how the systems actually perform.
Julf, do you have a description and pictures of your ncore-build somewhere? I would like to see it.
Will try to take a couple of pics next week - but they are just black boxes that sit under the speakers, nothing fancy.
Yes, I was aware of the increased gain of the NC1200 and did compensate accordingly. In getting ready for the test, I did these things because I thought the sound difference was going to be very subtle and I would have to do very careful A/B ing back and forth. I had a lot of pride that I had tweaked the best sound out of my NC400 and the Veritas could only be incrementally better.
But it turned out the moment I turned the Veritas on, it was an obvious no contest.
I am still curious what makes the NC1200 better - they should be based on the same overall architecture - and the static performance measurements are the same - so perhaps something to do with dynamic behavior?
And by the way, volume between amps can be digitally adjusted in the active crossover - voltage dividers are not needed.
Wow those speakers are efficient. What's their resistance? It seems, at least from what I've read, that the NC400 sounds better with higher resistance speakers.. but this could be entirely untrue. I think the real difference is in the power supply as mentioned by Hypex. Alfetta87 is doing a linear power supply with the NC400 and I'm waiting to see how that turns out for him. I've read a lot about expensive conditioners bringing the NC400 to an entirely new level as well.
I suggest also having someone take a listen at the same sound level without knowing which one cost more.. A blind test.
I suggest also having someone take a listen at the same sound level without knowing which one cost more.. A blind test.
Very nice!
Was that nCore front panel from modushop.biz or from somewhere else? I really would like to get that one for my nCore amp as well. Currently i have the 10mm aluminium without any milling on modushop 2U "Pesante dissipante" case.
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would be nice to see some comparisons from people who haven't bought the nc1200 based amps....an objective test...
I have not tried a conditioner, however I did try the Lessloss Sig power cable which claim to offer a lot of filtering via the skin effect without loss of dynamics.
I can confirm this power cord definitely improves both the NC1200 and the NC400.
so that cable is better then the merrill factory supplied triode ma-10 power cord?
To my ears, the Lessloss Sig was definitely better in all respects.
Please note this is the Sig cable, not the basic one.
The Sig cable is $1200
Ideally the best Triode cable for power amps would be the 7+, so its probably not fair to compare with the Ma-10. I am curious what the amp performance would be like with the Triode 7+. But surprisingly, the MA-10 Triode cable sounded better than the Lessloss Sig with my DAC, so I was very pleased that a swap worked out perfectly! 🙂
Here's a helpful review of the DFPC for those like me on a budget. He's not referring to the Sig, but double non sig is better than single sig according to lessloss... "To achieve higher cost-effectiveness, it is better to use multiple DFPC Originals than a smaller number of DFPC Signatures." Around $100 for those MACs for 90% of the performance of the DFPCs is a sweet spot for me.
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Keep in mind that when buying that cord you pay for art. Even if it is also a power conditioner the Hypex SMPS already has such filters built in so you shouldn't get any improvement at all
Hello, I'm curious to here if those who used a fancy power cord also maintained the Hypex supplied SMPS power Input cable during there build which is, unfortunately, only 18ga. Guess I'm having a hard time seeing the benefit of these massive and expensive power cords if after the IEC input it gets necked down to damn near the size of a human hair.
When I was building my NCore setup I lost a good bit of sleep looking at that 18ga wire and considered hard wiring at least 14ga to the board but decided against it, at least for now.
When I was building my NCore setup I lost a good bit of sleep looking at that 18ga wire and considered hard wiring at least 14ga to the board but decided against it, at least for now.
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The benefit in some of these power cords isn't about less resistance, otherwise it would be just as well to use a thick cable from the hardware store.
The benefit is the conditioning of upper frequency signals in the power line, to filter out signals in the line from other electronics and errant electromagnetic waves. There's some compelling reviews from NC400 owners about the benefit of some, not all, line conditioning. Some active line conditioners in particular such as the Aquarius is reported to clean the line well enough for a very audible improvement with the NC400, but these are thousands of dollars. Certain power cords are constructed in a way as to perform as a passive line conditioner, nearly as effective as active line conditioners and sometimes even more effective than active line conditioners because it's a simple and natural form of noise filtering without additional active electronic components involved. Active electronics in the line have a tendency to cause delay that affects transients, so I'm excited to give natural passive filtering via certain power cords a try.
The benefit is the conditioning of upper frequency signals in the power line, to filter out signals in the line from other electronics and errant electromagnetic waves. There's some compelling reviews from NC400 owners about the benefit of some, not all, line conditioning. Some active line conditioners in particular such as the Aquarius is reported to clean the line well enough for a very audible improvement with the NC400, but these are thousands of dollars. Certain power cords are constructed in a way as to perform as a passive line conditioner, nearly as effective as active line conditioners and sometimes even more effective than active line conditioners because it's a simple and natural form of noise filtering without additional active electronic components involved. Active electronics in the line have a tendency to cause delay that affects transients, so I'm excited to give natural passive filtering via certain power cords a try.
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