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In Reply to: RE: Nord One Up NC500 DM impressions posted by Satie on September 16, 2017 at 21:35:32
It seems amazing to me that electronics need 500+ hours to stop changing their sound. There are many who still believe break in doesn't exist at all. If they get even better from here I will report it. If they do get better in the midrange I will be ecstatic. Colin (Nord founder) could already charge more for these hypex based amps than he does; he already raised the prices once.Perhaps It would be useful to some readers here who are not as familiar with these amps to emphasize that the difference between these hypex based amps and others is Colin's custom class A input buffer, whereby one can use different op amps simply by pulling one off and inserting another one on the top of the board. it takes less than 2 minutes! I have the Sonic Imagery op amps in the unit and next will try the Sparkos op amps; which are reported to be a little warmer and rounder; maybe I will prefer them and sacrifice a little sparkle and air. It is an awesome option though; kind of like us with the electronic crossover's with the ability to adjust frequencies near the crossover points to fatten some frequencies up or lean them out. Or just the option to use one amp on the bass and another amp on the mids/ribbons. Let me tell you this is one killer amp for the bass panels! They are reported to be 'up to' 700 watts into 4 ohms, but some published test of the same NC500 circuit with same SMPS1200 power supply has reported about 450 watts continuous into 4 ohms with 0.1% distortion. Let's just say I conservatively have 1800 watts into the 3.6's :)
I am using Transparent plus speaker cables and Audio Sensibility Statement XLR's and Testament power cables. Audio Sensibility is another factory direct company like Nord where their equipment would retail for twice the asking price if it were sold by the dealer; highly recommended cables. My exaSound DAC was also purchased factory direct. No dealer; no middleman taking $1000 of my money for selling me a product I know I want. (All the Transparent cables were purchased second hand)
I recently read the review from Chris founder of Computer Audiophile about the Microrendu and he exclaimed that if he had to pick one album that was the best of all time, from any genre, it would be Miles Davis: Kind of Blue. A guy that has 7500 albums; 5 Terabytes of data on his NAS.
Edits: 09/17/17 09/17/17
The NC500 modules themselves don't require 500 hours of "break in" so I assume this subjective improvement is the result of the circuitry in the Nord input buffers. It would be interesting to know what components are responsible for this.
Assuming this "break in" is real and not unknown to Nord, then I think the buffers should be "broken in" at their facility so paying customers do not have to deal with it.
Dave.
You're a non believer?
Colin is not making much money buying the parts, assembling them and marketing/ selling them. If he ran them in 24/7 for 2 weeks it would definitely add to the price.
Audio Sensibility does offer burn in with their cables. Check it out on their website. 3 days of burn in for $10. I'll do it myself and save some money. Most reviews just state they ran them for several hundred hours then listened. I don't mind the whole process; a new piece of gear doesn't happen very often for me.
"If he ran them in 24/7 for 2 weeks it would definitely add to the price."
How so? When the buffers are complete he could install them in a dedicated, powered jig for a few weeks and when ready then install them into the larger amplifier setups. Assuming he's producing numerous amplifiers, there should always be "ready-to-go" buffers available immediately.
Charging customers for component "burn-in" (real or not) is ridiculous.
Dave.
The amp's op amp options are a good place to roll to get your balance of audio properties right. I am not up to date on the current options in op amps - discrete and integrated. Burson and Dexa lines were what was at the top op amp options. I don't know the current crop.
The wiring seems like solid choices, I would have liked to use OCC copper too, but it is too costly for me to experiment with for my DIY cabling. I find it baffling that Audio Sensibility build with expensive OCC stranded copper in what appears to be unsealed terminations, where stranded copper has a limited lifespan due to oxidation. I would have expected them to either seal the terminations or used individual solid core conductors without stranded bundles.
Since you are biamping I think you can use different wiring for bass and top end amps The bass wiring should be a bundle of solid core wires to get you down to the 9-10 gauge area. There is little point to having OCC wiring for the bass cables. That is not where their benefits are, that would be in the top end. And in biamp you don't need the top end to be as heavy, a composite of 14 gauge is fine for the speaker wire. OCC is a great choice. .
I forgot to add: I chose the Neotech OCC option for the internal wiring to the binding posts; an extra 45 pounds (money, not mass). I wish Magneplanar would have offered this with the 3.6's.
Excellent discussion and points made, Watts and Satie! I concur regarding Kind Of Blue; it is sophisticated enough to be interesting to hard-core Jazz fans, but also assessable enough for non-fans to engage them. What a rarity that it also possesses great recorded sound---a lot of my favorite music was unfortunately recorded indifferently or worse.
A good point made is in regard to how a high performance system allows one to better appreciate the music itself. When I got my first really good set-up in '72 (bi-amped Tympani-I's with ARC electronics and a Thorens/SME/Decca record player), a friend came over, and I played him some music. He was a music major in college, and had a Masters Degree in the field. He was very partial to J.S. Bach (who isn't?!), so I played him his Concerto for 4 Harpsichords and Orchestra, a piece with a lot of notes flying by at breakneck speed! The music is very dense, and it is hard to keep the parts played by each harpsichord separate from one another. My friend knew the music intimately in written form (the score), so his mind filled in what his really bad stereo didn't make audible. When he heard the piece on my system, with all the notes fully audible, he finally understood why I, unlike he, needed such a system to hear the music as well as he did in his mind.
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