Does Good measurement = Good Sound? Nord acoustics NC500 Hypex amplifier review !

So you could finally hear what the ribbons in your tweeters are doing? Try again with silk domes and see how you feel.

both icepower and hypex has developed new class D modules now, example amps are the NAD C 298 with Purifi and EDGE A2-400 with IcePower 400A2.
i am really curious if anything has improved.

If it measures good and sounds bad, you don't like the way the speakers sound. Instead of spending thousands of dollars chasing an amplifier with the right set of flaws to compensate for your speakers, why not buy a perfectly engineered amplifier and then just eq your speakers for free?

To those that say you can't measure good sound, I'd love to hear the explanations for how the engineers that built your favorite amp did so without measurements.

Not really. Nord D class poweramp has great sound, edge sharp resolution, deep and wide soundstages, sufficient power for most speaks. It's perfectly matched with my Dynaudio Confidence C2 for playing large scale orchestral music.

Maybe I'm missing something but he is talking about an amplifier, a device which amplifies the signal it receives, and judging by its measurements I would suppose it is pretty much transparent, so it has no characteristic sound to it, right?, just amplifies the signal crystal clear to our ears.. now he says he hears this glare in upper mid range, high freq too bright, not really good imaging and all those things, that I could understand from speakers, but from an amplifier? also.. he let it ran for 3 days sound became more focused... *??!!* ... Can anyone explain?

I have tried both op amps in my VTV Purifi monoblock amps and the Sonic Integrity is very harsh sounding. The Sparkos has both detail and smoothness.

Balanced connection is not a problem. That’s like saying the if you buy a car you might have trouble without a truck bed. You choose to buy balanced.

is soundstage really about the electronics? i always thought that it was all about phase,room acoustics,speakers design and speaker placement.

The NC500 makes the same power into 8 ohms before clipping as the NC1200 (270 watts) and close to the same power into 4 ohms (445 watts vs 480). The SINAD of NC500 measures about 10 db lower than the other NC modules.

Typical class d sound

How come the Hypex module are not liked while the purifi amp was super appreciated? They should be almost identical...

Infineon chip amps are much warmer.

I replaced my NC500's with the PS Audio M1200's which are better

Did you ever mentioned the price ? How much for both ?

Like Bruno Putzeys (inventor of Hypex Ncore, Purifi 1ET400A) says, the difference in distortion between solid state amplifiers pales in comparison to the amount of distortion introduced by any high end speaker which introduces distortion orders of magnitude higher. Moving your speakers 6 inches in your room will make more difference than swapping an amplifier. The comb filtering and the objects in your room are far far far far far more important to the sound than an amplifier. Objective measurements don't lie. Ears are all subjective. And the vast majority of "experienced" audiophiles and engineers have measurable hearing loss on audiometric testing. Yes... with age comes hearing loss. Trust their ears? hmm... Swapping op amps? Hmm.. get the highest quality available. Probably Sonic Imagery 990. It's like asking which flavor of slight distortion you prefer.

Still cannot figure it out. This amp and the Purifi Eval1 you have reviewed have the same design philosophy (actually both come from the same engineer) and the difference in performance between the two can be barely measured by an audio precision analyzer, and so beyond human audibility. Still your reviews are so different. Why? Can you find a reasonable explanation that is not "this is what i hear"? You know, to my eyes the earth is flat, but we are a step forward from that...

Лажа и отстой. 🎃

I have been searching the difference between sparkos and sonic imagery opamps. Glad to hear your take on that.

ive eard icepower amp in my system, what i felt- it sounds better than most 300 usd amplifiers and is more powerful. But i could not listen to it, there was somethign very unnatural and grainy in the mids that i cold not listen to it, it was so artificial. Presence as also much less than with the tube or A class SS amplifiers

GAN amps taken the giant killer helm.

I am baffled about "break-in" especially with electronics, what breaks in? I can get speakers as the voice coil needs to be exercised as it moves, but chips what changes?

The age old philosophical battle of what’s more audiophile. Accurate or pleasant to one’s own ears… For a power amp I’d take accurate any day of the week. I can get funky with pre amps and speakers.

What speakers are you using please jay.

I suspect those Sonic Imagery/Sparkos might be at least part of the problem. They are DESIGNED to manipulate the signal in order to elicit an emotional response from the listener. I think the standard version of the amp is better, simply because that's what Hypex designed it to be.

Interesting review, it sounds like the specs are consistent with the M700 monoblocks. Can you comment on the Nord's sound compared to the PS Audio m700 monoblocks as far as any forwardness and possible fatigue?.

Sorry to be off-topic but is Apollon out of business? No replies to email and now their website is gone.

That's a lot of heatsinking for a class D amplifier and I'm of the opinion that you can't have too much heatsinking but why is one of the heatsinks unused? Given that heatsinks and power supplies are the most expensive parts of an amplifier it doesn't make sense to me, maybe I'm missing something?

As far as the today's amps go, Devialet has some outlandish measurements and sound as well. I am a big advocate of good old vintage stuff, Technics in particular. Now, I am fully aware of the fact that Technics was struggling ( for the lack of a better word ) in sound quality department regardless the amazing technical specifications. However, I do need to elaborate a bit here. Technics components ( amps in particular ) were not the same for the Japanese market and the rest of the world. Japanese models were better built, used fancier materials ( copper, wood... ) better electronics ( OFC, R-core and low noise transformers ) and even had different finish ( brushed aluminum in silver, champagne or gloss black ) as oppose to the painted anthracite.Cassette decks would have different heads ( amorphous vs. "standard" ) amplifiers better chassis ( copper is used ), CD players dedicated power supplies ( dual shielded transformers vs only one or non shielded ) and all components used some non resonant compound for the base vs. just plastic in other markets. When you add all these things up, you virtually and realistically get two different products. I have personally compared several same yet different models, European and Japanese. Night and day in most cases. So when you look at the measurements, they all have amazing signal to noise ( way over 100dB, in some cases 120, 125...140!!!! ), amazing channel separation and dynamics and unrealistically low THD. I had amps with 0, 0007% THD!!! Just recently ive looked at some new amps they are making, THD of 0,5% and 0,05% was quite unimpressive to be honest. I am sure they sound very good. They look stunning for sure! But somehow I just keep going back to some vintage stuff. So tape decks, DAT and dcc ( and the fact you can't really buy them new ) are a vintage must, also, I prefer the sound of CD players up to the Y2K...but Technics, you did a spectacular job with your new turntables. Definitely saving up for those.

you came after 3 days and the sound was more focused?

Trouble is the recording studio us listening through their “coloured” speakers and mixing using their “coloured” equipment.
Then we buy an amp and use our own “coloured” source equipment and speakers in our own imperfect rooms.

Most important thing for me is musicality not detail.

How is the amp when it comes to home theater though?

You answered your own question!! At this level the brightness is the amp reveveling detail on BAD RECORDINGS.

5.30 of a 13.48 video before we get to the sound even some rubbish about blinding blue l,a,d's get there first "let's get into the sound, I think that's really where people are interested" Really you think, I came for it's suitability as a paperweight.

“If it measures good and sounds bad, it is bad. If it sounds good and measures bad, you’ve measured the wrong thing.” — Daniel von Recklinghausen, audio engineer at EAD and KLH

Very interesting. Once in my life, I decided to replace my older amplifier (Leak Delta 70) with a more modern, better measuring design. I hadn't heard it but reviews were positive. Very wife friendly, the new Sony unit was slim and shiny and took up less space. I hooked it up to my speakers and was positively impressed by the high frequencies. But the bass was abysmal. No weight like my Leak had, but the specifications suggested otherwise: more current and 30%-50% more power. After two weeks with it, I decided it was unlistenable and gave it to my brother in law. I replaced it with a Cambridge? A60 and the rest is history. Lesson learned. When wanting to replace the A60, I shortlisted three or four models and conducted extensive listening tests. Exposure won on musicality - I was no longer listening to hifi - I was listening to music. That was 1986 and I am still listening to my Exposure EVERY DAY. And thanks to my attention to power supply, good cables, isolation, RF shielding and speaker choice it sounds better than ever. Great channel, Jay. Thank you. All the best, Rob in Switzerland

I have found the Hypex NCx500 to be an amazing match with the KEF LS50 Metas. I have never experienced an amp that had so much grip and control over a speaker that is this difficult to drive.

Measurements matter. What those who like the sound of 2nd order harmonics should be expressing is they look for those harmonics in the measurements. If they like a bump or lowering in the eq at any particular frequency they should look for that. But the sound they like does not happen by #$%%^$@ magic. The ASR crowd clearly makes there evaluation based on measuring for absolute transparency of the singnal in to the signal out. Engineering wise that makes total sense. Just understand that is the ASR crowd goal and respect also that that may very well be their listening preference. And if the more traditional audiophile crowd falls into different camps of liking reduced highs (too sharp) or warmer sound (2nd order harmonics), then that is ok too. Each seems silly to each other crowd or camp, but different likes subjectively is ok, and there is objective measurements that can help towards achieving those subjective goals.

I found this video very interesting. I had a bad experience with my JC5 failing and was curious about this product. Using the Tekton DI, sounds like these would not be to my liking. it does sound like your ears are similar to mine on brightness. For my speakers, what have you used with success.........below or around 3k? thanks

I find commenting a bit tedious and cumbersome, so let me attempt to paraphrase. When attempting to reproduce a studio or live recording, the sound engineer equalizes according to their listening equipment. Until linear reproduction becomes common and affordable (which is quickly approaching) and is adopted by the music industry, their records will be biased toward traditional-sounding technologies. I am switching over to newer tech ASAP. Rather than buying an amp with a “warm” sound and high-frequency roll off, I’ll leave that to a preamp and DSP. This allows to tone down the brightness and warm up the midrange, making adjustments and presets as the industry catches up. 😉❤

I went to class d and never ever going back to anything else.

FYI spec of the board is overrated here is actual spec
"Peak output power


400 Watt – 2 Ohm
500 Watt - 4 Ohm
270 Watt - 8 Ohm
Continuous Power 100 Watt"

Hall Ruth Hernandez Ruth Taylor Elizabeth

Ncore are not bright. Your speakers are Bright. Ncora amp are Flat, Which is great.

Camylle Via

Zieme Falls

I have the baby brother - Nord with NC252 module. It's great at rendering detail and texture and has amazing soundstage - I think due to being able to render those details too, but it lacks in the bass department. Definitely becomes fatiguing, particularly at higher listening levels. I think it could match well with the right pre amp and speaker combo (not B&W 606 S3's like mine). My 90's Rotel RB980BX might not have the detail retrieval, but is more "musical" and has a fuller bottom end.

The Hypex NCx500 ST NCOREx is a great amp. Just add a good streamer/DAC

Avec un preampli à tube peut-être que le résultat sera moins brillant...

Class D uses a lot of negative feedback in order to get good measurements. That's also why this insane amount of damping is possible. But nobody can tell that that sounds in fact good.