Apollon NCx500ST Stereo Amplifier Review

[delta76]

Would it make any sense to move from a good class A/B amp with similar power to this? I have the Parasound A21, and I don't think it does, but I'm curious to what others think and why?

View attachment 310336

In most cases, no. Unless if you care about your electricity bill, and if your parasound has problems with heat.

 

[CleanSound]

*Raises Hand*

They really grip n rip on my Revel Performa's!

Those are some FINE speakers! And deserves an equally fine amplifier, I think the Apollon will be a great match.

 

[CleanSound]

Would it make any sense to move from a good class A/B amp with similar power to this? I have the Parasound A21, and I don't think it does, but I'm curious to what others think and why?

In most cases, no. Unless if you care about your electricity bill, and if your parasound has problems with heat.

Agreed. According to the specs of A21+ (assuming similar to A21), the distortions and noise level is very likely lower than an average human hearing threshold anyway. I don't know what the average human hearing threshold is, I'm assuming anywhere from .2% to 1%THD+N? (If my assumption made a big ass out of u and me, I stand corrected).

Now, unless you just want better performance so that you can have a peace of mind and sleep better at night, like me, then yes, you need this.

 

[Hart]

I feel bad for anyone who bought this amp and then discovered they could have gotten a tube amp with a handful of very distorted watts for exponentially more money. Hopefully they can return it.

 

[Hart]

I agree about the casework. I can't explain it, but it just looks cheap, even if it's perfectly functional and well finished. The good news is that they also make amps with very nice casework (see link in my previous post).

I agree, it looks like a kit box. I think the a lot of the class D folks need to step up their aesthetics and marketing. They have a great product, they need to make it look like they do. Not everyone, but some.

 

[delta76]

I feel bad for anyone who bought this amp and then discovered they could have gotten a tube amp with a handful of very distorted watts for exponentially more money. Hopefully they can return it.

Most people buy tube amps not because of they are clean, but because of their signature sound (warm).

Of course it is all personal preference. And they could have bought another cheap tube amp which probably just sounds the same. But, well, the industry is so distorted anyway

 

[thegeton]

It is so accessible nowadays that the question is more "why not"?

You can never have too much pizza, sex, or power...

 

[SuicideSquid]

This really puts the recently reviewed NAD amplifier to shame - better performance, better aesthetics, and half the price to boot.

 

[Apollon Audio]

I'd be interested to know if there's really much of a significant measured difference between the op-amp options... and yes, also considering getting one.

Here are the measurements of different op amps coupled with the NCx500 (LM4562, OPA1656, Sonic Imagery 994). LM4562 op amp is used in the default built in NCx500 input buffer, which is bypassed in our amplifiers.

 

[AudioSceptic]

I agree, it looks like a kit box. I think the a lot of the class D folks need to step up their aesthetics and marketing. They have a great product, they need to make it look like they do.

Go to the Apollon website and you'll see that they also make amps with top class casework. I suspect that they make amps like this one to compete against the many Class D "kit assemblers" whilst also asking a bit more for stuff that looks (and is!) high end. Makes a lot of sense to me.

 

[capslock]

What power supply does it use? The regular Hypex SMPS series?

My impression from the previous NCx vs. Nilai tests here at ASR was that the better noise floor of the Nilai was owed to the regulated Nilai power supply. So I am surprised to see a NCx implementation now attaining better SINAD than the Nilai.

 

[Billy Budapest]

A decent price for this level of SOTA performance and power. Thanks to whoever sent this one in and @amirm for the testing.

The case, connectors and design in general seem most professional. It's good to see XLR and RCA too as well as the gain settings. Also, @Apollon Audio nice job.

JSmith

Tidy construction but those silly discrete opamps give me pause.

 

[radix]

An ideal amp would keep its voltage constant regardless of load. We almost have that at 4 ohm but at 2 volts

Should that be "at 2 ohm"

 

[Doodski]

Tidy construction but those silly discrete opamps give me pause.

I imagine it is pretty difficult to make discreet OP amps that can outperform or match a good OP amp. So I'm on board with your comment of not trusting those.

 

[AdamG]

You can never have too much pizza, sex, or power...

I don’t know about that. I have had too much Pizza once!

 

[pablolie]

I imagine it is pretty difficult to make discreet OP amps that can outperform or match a good OP amp. So I'm on board with your comment of not trusting those.

Then again - if results are all that matters, these seem to work pretty darn well. Note that they offer the choice to pick other OpAmp options, too (Sonic Imagery 994 or Sparkos Labs SS2590 pro or Opa 1656). I assume the one in the pic is the latter?

 

[Doodski]

Then again - if results are all that matters, these seem to work pretty darn well. Note that they offer the choice to pick other OpAmp options, too (Sonic Imagery 994 or Sparkos Labs SS2590 pro or Opa 1656). I assume the one in the pic is the latter?

The 2 images show both the discreet OP amp and the integrated OP amp choices. I'm not sure which OP amp was in @amirm's test results.

 

[pablolie]

The 2 images show both the discreet OP amp and the integrated OP amp choices. I'm not sure which OP amp was in @amirm's test results.

Second one is the Sonic Imagery version. First one seem the TI 1656 based one?

 

[Dougey_Jones]

Go to the Apollon website and you'll see that they also make amps with top class casework. I suspect that they make amps like this one to compete against the many Class D "kit assemblers" whilst also asking a bit more for stuff that looks (and is!) high end. Makes a lot of sense to me.

In addition to premium casework, I think the more expensive models are mostly dual (or multi) mono configurations and slightly different chipsets (NCx500 vs NCx500ST).

 

[Dougey_Jones]

The 2 images show both the discreet OP amp and the integrated OP amp choices. I'm not sure which OP amp was in @amirm's test results.

I no longer see it as an option when configuring the NCx500ST on their website, but both of mine were ordered with OPA1612 op-amps. That was the standard selection at the time that I ordered.