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Apollon Hypex NC2K Amplifier Teardown

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restorer-john

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The analyzer is in a rack and it ain't moving in that direction any more than the amp is the other way around.

I'd also be concerned with the topolgy of your MLs and switching loads at high powers. At $28K a pop, it's a bit risky. You'd also need mega expensive new precision loads. It was also extensively tested by Stereophile IIRC.
 

March Audio

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You are just making it worse for yourself with each post.



No, you are wrong.

If you actually hunted down capacitor problems, you'd know the physical venting is the last stage of cheap capacitor failures. @amirm knows that.

The electrolyte is mostly water and the vents are placed in the "bung" on the base of capacitors. Usually the internal pressure will rupture the bung seal first and a tiny amount of gas (often hydrogen) will escape. This disipates harmlessly. Often the hydrogen can't escape easily as the capacitor is glued to the PCB, so it squeezes up the plastic sheath and the top plastic cap become swollen. People think the can is swollen but it's just the gas under the plastic top cap. The cap may still be fine at this point, although it is a warning for sure.

All the while the capacitor changes its electrical characteristics. An in circuit ESR meter is the best tool to find cap problems long before they physically leak. It's easy and fast (on powered off discharged circuits). Cheap brand caps pretty much always have skyrocketing ESR as they begin to fail. The circuit will still work, but it is degrading fast. The I2R losses (from rising ESR and ripple current) then cause rapid internal heating, loss of more electrolyte and process speeds up to complete failure, often taking out the stamped top vent which is for a catastrophic venting event.

SMPS supplies place a lot of strain on the simple capacitor. High frequency, high ripple current, high temperatures, marginal reserve in design and cheap brands all lead to premature failure.
Waffle on as much as you like John :)

Please show me the Hypex cap failures.

If you can't, and its pretty obvious that no doubt despite desperate internet searching you can't, then you are wrong and just making noise.
 
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DDF

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You can either advocate for change or dig in and yell from the bunker everytime.

My field is optical telecom and if a cap fails, we risk taking down a NYC banking network. We need to know a thing or two about component reliability. The drill is to deep dive investigate reliability testing (85C/85%humidity 1000Hr soak, extensive thermal cycling, shock and vibe...) then repeat annual supplier factory audits of manufacturing process variation and control.

This costs big money. No way audio companies can afford this unless mass market. So, the options left for these boutique manufacturers we obsess over:
1. Buy more expensive brand parts with a public track record for reliability
2. Prepare to replace stuff FOC and hope to make it up on volume from your good reputation
3. Pass the risk on to the consumer and hope no one notices

IME, brands seem to go for #2 or #3 since price differential scares away too many customers who can't begin to appreciate what that extra $30 buys them.
 
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dfuller

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If you actually hunted down capacitor problems, you'd know the physical venting is the last stage of cheap capacitor failures
Indeed - in my experience, power supply filter caps more often present themselves as oscillation, motorboating, or seriously increased residual ripple (at least in linear supplies; I don't regularly work on switching supplies as I mostly work on guitar amps which are phenomenally stone-age in topology) long before visible cap failure.
 
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Matias

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Doodski

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What temperature are these new SMPS operating at when run hard and into low impedances?
When a car amp was worth something at retail I repaired thousands of high end SMPS car amps and yes that included many capacitors, lots of FETs, darlington transistors and a lesser amount of pulse width modulation control ICs. These amps where class AB and ran very hot. When the amp case was open and venting the heat sink temps where hot enough to brown the surface of a wood workbench and hot enough to engage the PCB ~85C temperature protection. Considering that I was providing national warranty service for the importer in Canada the amount of failures both in and out of warranty where not that numerous. Not as numerous as the broad brush-strokes being used here to paint a bleak picture. Most of the caps where the power supply output caps. Amazingly the amplifier electrolytic capacitors survived and where near never replaced. So it seems the SMPS caps are the failure point, they take the most heat and produce the most heat. This was a extreme environment that is expected to bake caps. I estimate that they run much cooler in the new class D amps and should survive better than a 2 Ohm load presented to a class AB car amp with SMPS. @amirm has advised that the class D amps that he tested operated warm but not hot to the touch. I suspect that a decent quality cap rated for 85C is enough for the task in a modern class D SMPS amp.
 
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DDF

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@amirm has advised that the class D amps that he tested operated warm but not hot to the touch. I suspect that a decent quality cap rated for 85C is enough for the task in a modern class D SMPS amp.

Class D amps typically have very low efficiency near idle, progressing to very high efficiency under high load. My NC400 based amp is cool as a cucumber playing music, case gets notably warm (not over-easy hot though) when completely idle. It didn't get much use before the supply cap died, but it was on 24/7

Bruno grudgingly dealt with this in the Purify, specifically improving low load efficiency.
 

Universal Cereal Bus

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Considering that I was providing national warranty service for the importer in Canada the amount of failures both in and out of warranty where not that numerous.
Everyone knows that cars in Canada only experience sub-freezing temperatures, year-round, under all astrological transitions... so not a very useful data point, IMHO.
 

restorer-john

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For @restorer-john : Just curious if you have actually listened to the Hypex / Purifi stuff? The reason I ask is that I tend to hold on to all of my amps. So when the NAD M22 v2 came into my possession,

Not sure what my subjective opinions are worth, but yes, I have listened to them, both a purifi DIY build and a NAD NC400OEM based unit I had to fix for a friend. I couldn't fault them at all, subjectively, when driven from a range of quality preamplifiers. They sounded like any other good amplifier. The NAD unit was extremely well built and the Purifi build had a good standard of caps on the amp board, IIRC they were Rubycons, so they have at least upgraded from what Hypex use, it would seem. Unless NAD specified something different, I don't know.

I also don't know what component changes have been made along the various runs, that's for @March Audio to comment on.
 

restorer-john

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Bruno grudgingly dealt with this in the Purify, specifically improving low load efficiency.

And using better quality capacitors...

This picture on their website shows Panasonic capacitors. It may be a very early version. I'm pretty sure the unit I saw I had Rubycon on the amp board.

https://purifi-audio.com/eigentakt/

1603331699273.png


The SMPS had rubbish caps on it however.
 

Bruce Morgen

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Indeed - in my experience, power supply filter caps more often present themselves as oscillation, motorboating, or seriously increased residual ripple (at least in linear supplies; I don't regularly work on switching supplies as I mostly work on guitar amps which are phenomenally stone-age in topology) long before visible cap failure.

I know this is anecdotal and a statistical sample of one, but when the IR-based Class D plate amp in my old Infinity subwoofer failed -- the actual failure point was a single small-signal transistor in the ATO circuit -- the tech did a thorough (17 electrolytics) recap. Interestingly, the only ones he didn't change were the two big ones in the amp's old-fashioned linear power supply, which apparently measured like new after over 20 years.
 

Bruce Morgen

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And using better quality capacitors...

This picture on their website shows Panasonic capacitors. It may be a very early version. I'm pretty sure the unit I saw I had Rubycon on the amp board.

https://purifi-audio.com/eigentakt/

View attachment 88969

The SMPS had rubbish caps on it however.

I'm pretty sure Purifi sources the SMPS boards in their eval and DIY products from Hypex --there is no SMPS offering in their OEM line AFAIK.
 

Universal Cereal Bus

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Part of it is having experienced the reliability of the Japanese manufactured components I grew up with.
Do Japanese bubble era electronics have the same reputation as Japanese bubble era cars? For context, those bubble era cars are well-known to have been over-engineered and over-spec'd, due in part to Japan's bubble economy at the time. The Japanese firms could spend more and stay competitive. Justifiably, there's a great deal of nostalgia for those bubble era cars; however, those standards obviously were not sustainable because of the underlying bubble economics. I wonder if the same holds true for the electronics of the time.
 

PeteL

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Class D amps typically have very low efficiency near idle, progressing to very high efficiency under high load. My NC400 based amp is cool as a cucumber playing music, case gets notably warm (not over-easy hot though) when completely idle. It didn't get much use before the supply cap died, but it was on 24/7

Bruno grudgingly dealt with this in the Purify, specifically improving low load efficiency.
Wondering, in term of branding administration and ownership, if Purifi just the higher end serie of Hypex or if they are fully separated entities. Is Putzeys still at Hypex or is there somesort of breakup?
 

restorer-john

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Do Japanese bubble era electronics have the same reputation as Japanese bubble era cars? For context, those bubble era cars are well-known to have been over-engineered and over-spec'd, due in part to Japan's bubble economy at the time. The Japanese firms could spend more and stay competitive.

They had a large population that was prepared to pay more for quality, over a long period of time. The rest of the world benefited from the economies of scale and the desire to own gear that was built with the best components, engineered to a superb standard and would last the test of time. Spare parts were available for everything, right down to knobs and screws. I know, I could order panel screws, knobs, display windows, whatever you needed.

Ask @amirm about his time with Sony, I'm sure he has some stories.
 

Doodski

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Spare parts were available for everything, right down to knobs and screws.
I'll second that. I was even ordering rare/obscure parts for 20 year old Sony stuff and getting the parts. Sometimes we had to wait for a ETA of ~8 weeks but we always got the parts if a ETA was provided. Those where the days; now it sucks ;)
 

Universal Cereal Bus

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They had a large population that was prepared to pay more for quality, over a long period of time. The rest of the world benefited from the economies of scale and the desire to own gear that was built with the best components, engineered to a superb standard and would last the test of time. Spare parts were available for everything, right down to knobs and screws. I know, I could order panel screws, knobs, display windows, whatever you needed.

Ask @amirm about his time with Sony, I'm sure he has some stories.
Thus the point I'm trying to get at is this: Is it not a bit unfair to compare Japanese bubble era electronics to today's electronics? Due to the underlying economics, the advantages of those older electronics seem a bit "artificial" (i.e., unsustainable).
 

Bruce Morgen

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Wondering, in term of branding administration and ownership, if Purifi just the higher end series of Hypex or if they are fully separated entities. Is Putzeys still at Hypex or is there somesort of breakup?

As I understand it, Bruno was only ever an employee at Hypex. IIRC he is a Co-Founder of Purifi and also Co-Founder/CTO of Kii Audio. Hypex, Purifi, and Kii are separate companies.

They had a large population that was prepared to pay more for quality, over a long period of time. The rest of the world benefited from the economies of scale and the desire to own gear that was built with the best components, engineered to a superb standard and would last the test of time. Spare parts were available for everything, right down to knobs and screws. I know, I could order panel screws, knobs, display windows, whatever you needed.

Ask @amirm about his time with Sony, I'm sure he has some stories.

There was also a nationwide Japanese effort to overcome the "Jap Crap" image the country's low-cost exports had acquired as their industries dug out of the wreckage of WW2 and well into the 1950s. My old boss at Arrow Electronics' audio sales operation warned Avery Fisher and Hermon Scott circa 1960 that Japan was getting its quality act together and that Arrow would soon making long term purchasing commitments to Japanese suppliers. By the time I came aboard in 1969, Arrow was all about Kenwood, Sansui, Pioneer, and Sony when it came to electronics -- although we kept selling McIntosh and Dynaco gear to wealthy professionals and budget audiophiles respectively -- while both Fisher and Scott were in the process of selling their brand names to Japanese companies. By the time I left, Onkyo and Matsushita's Technics brand had joined the successful Japanese invasion of Arrow showrooms.
 

restorer-john

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And no you have misrepresented Apollon. They have said that out of the amps they have sold not one single failure due to caps.

I haven't misrepresented anyone! Unlike yourself, they (Apollon) have attempted to:

a) Approach Hypex in an attempt to have better quality capacitors installed.
b) Offered their clients a better option at increased cost.
c) Made it clear in this thread the situation as it stands is "unfortunate".
and
d) Communicated in this thread in a constructive, non-combatitive way, all the while acknowledging and not denying what I and others have said is perfectly true.

Now, consider this. Why would Apollon do all that, if there wasn't very good reasons for doing so?

I would also consider perhaps that your involvement in the Apollon tear-down thread, going headlong into battle yet again, flying your one-sided Hypex flag, may be doing you more damage than good.
 
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