So Mike, do you have yours up and running? Do you have the NC400s? How is the treble sound on them? On par with the best tube amps? even OTLs?
Rich,
Yes, mine arrived on 4/16 and since I had the chassis ready, they were running that evening.
As for sound, they seem to not really have one, at least that is the impression that most who have heard them come away with and the one that I have as well. The bass is pretty amazing, as one would expect with a ZOut of .7mOhm. Thus far I have not had problems with listening fatigue or grain/grit/irritation in the treble. If a recording has a warm lush sound, that is what I am hearing. Thin recordings, pretty thin. None of the extra warmth that some SET and even PP tube amps provide. I wouldn't mind a bit of that for some discs but that's why I have a tube preamp.
One thing that I have found is the low noise and or low distortion allows for a lot of low level details to come through; in my system this isn't in your face but a sense of just little things the musicians are doing, sense of space of the recording venue, that sort of thing. I like the little nuances, to me that is what helps the illusion.
With speakers like the Abbey's they have effectively no power limit since a few watts is really loud. I have pushed them hard on some well recorded drum solos just to see how much realism was possible. Let's just say I have flashbacks to my younger days when I had a drummer for a roomie. It was a physical as well as aural experience. A buddy came down Saturday for a listen, he thought it would be a good idea since he had already ordered them. He left happy and not looking to cancel his order. He commented on the amount of low level information as well and the fact it wasn't forward sounding. I had to leave the room for a while and when I came back he had it really cranked up, trying to see if there was a problem with irritation at high levels, he didn't find a problem.
Yesterday I took them to another friends place, he has Vienna Acoustics Mahler's and drives them with a Krell FPB-600 and has a great fondness for bass heavy electronica. The NC400's had no issues driving the Mahler's to silly levels and he specifically mentioned they offered not only the iron grip of the Krell but were much more articulate in the bass. Also mentioned was the treble was considerably sweeter than the Krell, but I've never been a big fan of the treble on big Krell's. I'm 99% sure he's going to replace the giant amp with a pair of the Hypex. His last words were "they kicked the Krell's butt".
To answer Charles question, they don't offer the somewhat inherent lushness of an SET but I've never been sure if SET's sound good because of their second order THD or in spite of it. Either way, a good SET/speaker pairing is a thing of beauty. IMO the NCore don't fall into the beautiful category but beautiful music is the result. When I had Jason's pair another buddy came by and observed that we stopped analyzing the sound after a while and instead commented on how lovely the music was, how good the performance was, how good xxx could sing. For me, that is what I care about. I was listening to the Shostakovitch Jazz Suites from a Naxos DVD yesterday and just kept getting sucked in, that is what I want my system to do.
I'm not trying to be a fanboy type, hell, I've had the opportunity to try a lot of amps in my system via friends, repairs and of course purchase and for me, in my space, these are doing the best job of getting out of the way. I am absolutely certain they won't be for everyone, and I could care less if they are or are not. Someone more golden eared will probably pronounce them unlistenable and to that person, they may well be; that is equally fine.
mike
