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Apollon Hypex NC2K Amplifier Teardown

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CDMC

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Add at least 200 usd per case and connectors, + 30 usd for wiring, hours of work for assembly and some profit for a living and covering warranties, plus fixed expenses such as website hosting, accounting, etc, and then it is not so much anymore.

What is this profit thing? They are supposed to sell at BOM, labor is free and big bad owners are not supposed to make money.


That was sarcasm for those that can’t tell.
 

restorer-john

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John only made the comment because he knows I used to work for Rolls Royce Aero engines. The comparison is false because the requirements are completely different. Its absolutely essential that an engine doesn't fail for obvious reasons. They still do fail from time to time BTW regardless of all the quality control and "premium" manufacturing/components.

A domestic amplifier is a different proposition. To design an amp that's absolutely reliable for 50 years would significantly increase cost. For the vast majority of consumers its of no relevance and a cost they don't want.

The illustration is precisely the same Alan. Taking a TOTL Hypex amplifier module and power supply vs a TOTL aircraft engine. Compromising with a small number of poor components results in exactly the same outcomes- premature failure, which could have been averted with better component choice and minimal cost increase.

@Apollon Audio is already offering an upgrade to tier one, highly reliable capacitors. Instead of burying your head in the sand and unsuccessfully trying to steamroll your agenda here, you could be investigating doing the same.

As I said further back in the thread, put pressure on Hypex to implement a better standard of components and this discussion will never occur again. Otherwise it will keep coming up, over and over. The Hypex modules are beautifully built, apart from cheap capacitors. In my and thousands of other technicians experience over many decades, it is the power supply electrolytics from cheap manufacturers that cause us the most pain.

And who has plucked "absolutely reliable for 50 years" out of the air? You. But let's have some fun. How about 45 years? I've just grabbed a Sony TA-3650 which sold for £190 in 1976. Hardly TOTL, but not super cheap either. It is completely original. I recently tested the entire amplifier and it is flawless. Right from the perfect tone control curves, filters, frequency response, noise performance and power output was well above spec. Any capacitors that have drifted or failed would have affected the numerous tests I performed.

Shall we see what cheap and nasty capacitors are in it? Surely Sony would have saved money on a middle of the range amplifier?

Photos to come. :)
 

restorer-john

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Apollon checked to see if Hypex would offer a version with good caps and Hypex refused. The Hypex boards, with their glued-on LED-lightbulb caps are a component you swap out.

This is the problem. Hypex only want to sell whole amplifier modules. And license OEMs to build the modules. As many as they can. It's in their interest for them to be swap-out replacements and not last.

So, on the one hand, they extoll their "efficiency" by saving power and going 'green" and saving the planet, and, on the other hand, they will not make their products potentially last longer and stay out of landfill by using cheap capacitor brands, known to fail.

1603320955183.png


I've always found the weak points in gear because that's where an otherwise functional and excellent product can be brought to its knees, or worse, thrown on the scrapheap. Cheap capacitors are a time bomb for reliability. We all know this and Hypex is playing a numbers game but trading under the guise of world class, paradigm shifting and state of the art.

Hypex. Step up your game. Use the best electrolytics in your amplifier modules and power supplies. Walk the walk.
 
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Helicopter

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The illustration is precisely the same Alan. Taking a TOTL Hypex amplifier module and power supply vs a TOTL aircraft engine. Compromising with a small number of poor components results in exactly the same outcomes- premature failure, which could have been averted with better component choice and minimal cost

The mindset, when you work on any part of an aircraft, from a subcomponent up, in engineering, production, inspection, repair, is completely different from anything else. You can never step away from it because the fleet is still in service. No one at RR has ever skimped on components to save a little money. None of their customers would ever demand that. Never.

The only things thay are the same are some of the technologies and the demand for longevity, but the implication of that is also obviously different.
 

restorer-john

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The mindset, when you work on any part of an aircraft, from a subcomponent up, in engineering, production, inspection, repair, is completely different from anything else. You can never step away from it because the fleet is still in service. No one at RR has ever skimped on components to save a little money. None of their customers would ever demand that. Never.

The only things thay are the same are some of the technologies and the demand for longevity, but the implication of that is also obviously different.

Reminded me of this ad from 1990:
scan497.jpg


I have quite a collection of Sony's TOTL ES series. Maybe 20 pieces, not sure. The only things I've ever had to replace or repair in 30 years are belts and periodic cleaning/lubrication of moving parts. The 3 Sony ES DAT recorders however used SMD capacitors on their RF head amplifiers and 100% of them failed after 20 years, making repair difficult, but not impossible. Leaking electrolyte makes a mess of triple layer copper PCB tracks in a sealed metal can...

The amplifiers, preamplifiers and all other components use Nichicon Muse/Fine Gold, Great Supply, Elna Starget/Duorex II, Rubycon Black Gates etc. Never had a single failure of those capacitors, not in my collection or on my bench.

Anyway, I have to dig out my capacitor bag of shame if I can find it. :)
 
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Helicopter

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Reminded me of this ad from 1990:
View attachment 88954

I have quite a collection of Sony's TOTL ES series. Maybe 20 pieces, not sure. The only things I've ever had to replace or repair in 30 years are belts and periodic cleaning/lubrication of moving parts. The 3 Sony ES DAT recorders however used SMD capacitors on their RF head amplifiers and 100% of them failed after 20 years, making repair difficult, but not impossible. Leaking electrolyte makes a mess of triple layer copper PCB tracks in a sealed metal can...

The amplifiers, preamplifiers and all other components use Nichicon Muse/Fine Gold, Great Supply, Elna Starget/Duorex II, Rubycon Black Gates etc. Never had a single failure of those capacitors, not in my collection or on my bench.

Anyway, I have to dig out my capacitor bag of shame if I can find it. :)
No question they put pride in their outstanding work and products, including the capacitors. That stuff was much more like all aerospace hardware, new and old in this regard compared to new comsumer electronics. This is why I mentioned vintage audio gear in my second post. Also, some old audio gear actually used aerospace.parts like tubes. Even the 60s-70s Panasonic consumer grade stuff I play with is made better than Hypex. Consumer electronics have really raced to the bottom on cost.
 

CDMC

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In paragraph 4 you describe the Hypex as ’tinny’, is that a subjective evaluation of the sound?

He is right, they are tinny. I took one of the case and flicked it with my finger and it sounded tinny. ;)
 

Tks

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This is the problem. Hypex only want to sell whole amplifier modules. And license OEMs to build the modules. As many as they can. It's in their interest for them to be swap-out replacements and not last.

So, on the one hand, they extoll their "efficiency" by saving power and going 'green" and saving the planet, and, on the other hand, they will not make their products potentially last longer and stay out of landfill by using cheap capacitor brands, known to fail.

View attachment 88952

I've always found the weak points in gear because that's where an otherwise functional and excellent product can be brought to its knees, or worse, thrown on the scrapheap. Cheap capacitors are a time bomb for reliability. We all know this and Hypex is playing a numbers game but trading under the guise of world class, paradigm shifting and state of the art.

Hypex. Step up your game. Use the best electrolytics in your amplifier modules and power supplies. Walk the walk.

Oh this is nothing new, this is mostly a marketing driven initiative. In the same way energy conglomerates have had recent propensities in the past decade with "veggy based" gas sources and such.

No company in the upper echelon of their fields can ever actually afford "going green" in reality - as that is a complete antithesis to current global market economy system of business. Planned, and intrinsic obsolescence paradigms have been mainstay ever since the Industrial Revolution especially. Reason for that being is for the first time in history, after that point in history - was when commodities have forever become more in supply than ever being in demand ever again. And these companies cannot afford stop practices like this if such companies have aspirations of maintaining market dominance in your relevant field (because if you don't, another company wishing to be the next big cell phone makers for example, will make products that expire by a certain desired time). It's simple really - if demand can never supersede supply, demand must be artificially created. The least politically offensive way to do this is covering such a practice behind layers of "trade secrets" to where legal revelation of offenses are virtually impossible (and is why you never see anyone actually get pinned hard for making products with expiration dates imparted by the company by design).

Though this level of catastrophe is finally (after over a century of signaling by advocacy groups) hopefully receiving pushback from countries like France that make this a criminal offense if caught. Whether this is just posturing, or a legitimate legal tool that will be employed, remains to be seen. I highly doubt it, for obvious reasons. But at least it's less of a taboo conversation (usually one where free-market proponents hurl infantile aspersions to their interlocutors of being dirty communist sympathizers and traitors to the best economic system ever as proposed by our near-divine forefathers here in the US like Adam Smith & Friends).
 

CDMC

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Bruce Morgen

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I have a late-'80s Yamaha surround processor in my modest desktop/nearfield 4.1 system. It performs like new with one notable exception -- and that's not due to failed caps or semiconductors, but rather from a couple of the RCA jacks with center contacts that have loosened up over the years and become unreliable. Of course, this is in a relatively low-voltage, low-temperature piece of gear, but in my time managing an audio service shop back in 1970s, I was taken by how many repairs, both in and out of warranty, were for low-tech failures like switches, pots, connectors, and outright assembly errors rather than bad circuit components.
 

March Audio

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No, question is how much oem modul costs from hypex.
.
For me the stranger things are companies that putting oem modul into chassis and selling it 5x and more that price.

And after that you have to pay 500E for recap with caps that will last longer. How much time it takes: 4 hours for first unit and then I won`t believe that normally it takes more that 2 hours with proper equipment.
Its extremely ignorant to think that a products cost are limited to the module costs.

It is very normal for sell price to be between 2.5 and 5x total BOM. Less than this and you have no business.
 

Tks

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What's all this talk about using airliner industry as an example of "in critical situations, using the highest spec parts is justified", as if airliners are immune from scumbag practices where even safety is put on the monetary table of discussion when previously something of this caliber would never be an aspect people would bargain over? [For those interested, this whole Boeing ordeal has been a disaster, lots of crooked crap happening to engineers being used like sweatshop workers, told to shut up and do what they're told on the construction projects]. Quite terrifying to know there are people out there in such positions that are bargaining with potentially decisions that could lead people on planes spiraling to their death in the worst case..
 
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The illustration is precisely the same Alan. Taking a TOTL Hypex amplifier module and power supply vs a TOTL aircraft engine. Compromising with a small number of poor components results in exactly the same outcomes- premature failure, which could have been averted with better component choice and minimal cost increase.
These amps are not top of the line as amps go John. They may be so within their own lines but not among amplifiers in general. My switching amplifier produces 1000 watts but costs US $25,000! Here are its guts:

1212levin.side.jpg


You can see your coke sized capacitors now. :D My amp uses a linear power supply by the way so weighs a ton (around 120 pounds from what I recall).

I personally call a $2,300 amp producing 2 KW of power a budget amp. :)
 

PeteL

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Its extremely ignorant to think that a products cost are limited to the module costs.

It is very normal for sell price to be between 2.5 and 5x total BOM. Less than this and you have no business.
Ish, very hard to have a business with 2.5 times BOM, maybe on a online only straight from manufacturer, with no R&D at all and limited marketing, but for the very vast majority of products out there, I´d silde those numbers to 4x to 6x+ this would be much more realistic.
 

restorer-john

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These amps are not top of the line as amps go John. They may be so within their own lines but not among amplifiers in general. My switching amplifier produces 1000 watts but costs US $25,000!

Absolutely. Your ML are such amplifiers. But yours are also well into the diminishing returns area.

My issue is it is Hypex's TOTL module and SMPS and they refuse to use mainstream tier one caps.
 

Universal Cereal Bus

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I have a lot of respect for that philosophy. However, in this case I follow an other approach. I have a 8 channel amp with 4 NCxxxMP units. I only use three of them for a 3 way active system. I suspect those units don't have the longevity of a typical class AB amp with a lineair power supply. But when a unit fails, I have a "hot spare" already in place with no downtime. All those units are easy to replace by myself at low cost. Like a failed harddisk in your desktop computer.
This anecdote really underscores, for me, that there is no right answer in this debate. I think the positions are fundamentally unreconcilable and both are valid.

We would all love to have our material things engineered to last beyond our lifetimes; however, at least in consumer electronics, those days are long gone and I doubt they will return. It's clear that Hypex and its partners consider their modules consumer electronics:
You may not like it but how many of todays hifi products will be relevant in 20 years?
I think most consumers will pick any one of convenience, performance, or cost over a modest compromise in reliability or longevity. I don't blame Hypex for following the market.

Ultimately, the strong negative emotions here are rooted in Hypex's leading position in high power amps and their patented technology. Both create large barriers to entry for a potential alternative high power amp that has greater theoretical reliability. Since there's no alternative available, we see this visceral reaction. There wouldn't be so much criticism if there were more compelling choices on the market.
 

Helicopter

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What's all this talk about using airliner industry as an example of "in critical situations, using the highest spec parts is justified", as if airliners are immune from scumbag practices where even safety is put on the monetary table of discussion when previously something of this caliber would never be an aspect people would bargain over? [For those interested, this whole Boeing ordeal has been a disaster, lots of crooked crap happening to engineers being used like sweatshop workers, told to shut up and do what they're told on the construction projects]. Quite terrifying to know there are people out there in such positions that are bargaining with potentially decisions that could lead people on planes spiraling to their death in the worst case..
Whatever. I didn't say Boeing, I said RR.

I am on point regarding prevailing organizational culture in the aerospace industry, and I know my experience in many firms applies to RR.
 
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March Audio

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The illustration is precisely the same Alan. Taking a TOTL Hypex amplifier module and power supply vs a TOTL aircraft engine. Compromising with a small number of poor components results in exactly the same outcomes- premature failure, which could have been averted with better component choice and minimal cost increase.

@Apollon Audio is already offering an upgrade to tier one, highly reliable capacitors. Instead of burying your head in the sand and unsuccessfully trying to steamroll your agenda here, you could be investigating doing the same.

As I said further back in the thread, put pressure on Hypex to implement a better standard of components and this discussion will never occur again. Otherwise it will keep coming up, over and over. The Hypex modules are beautifully built, apart from cheap capacitors. In my and thousands of other technicians experience over many decades, it is the power supply electrolytics from cheap manufacturers that cause us the most pain.

And who has plucked "absolutely reliable for 50 years" out of the air? You. But let's have some fun. How about 45 years? I've just grabbed a Sony TA-3650 which sold for £190 in 1976. Hardly TOTL, but not super cheap either. It is completely original. I recently tested the entire amplifier and it is flawless. Right from the perfect tone control curves, filters, frequency response, noise performance and power output was well above spec. Any capacitors that have drifted or failed would have affected the numerous tests I performed.

Shall we see what cheap and nasty capacitors are in it? Surely Sony would have saved money on a middle of the range amplifier?

Photos to come. :)
Its not John, not even close for the reasons already explained.

This is Apollons thread so I won't go further into the merits of recapping, but we won't be offering that service.

My agenda? Its you that has promoted incorrect information and called Hypex contemptible. Its you that mentioned caps being reliable for 30 to 40 years and we all know that you continually bash on about the your 1970s amplifiers as if they are the only good products ever made.

Again you are making the mistake of extrapolating your personal experience with different products, with different specific components, running under different operating conditions. You can't do that. Its completely erroneous to do so.
 
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