Apollon NCx500ST Stereo Amplifier Review

[Labjr]

"50K μF"?!

grrrrrr.....

For starters, "K" is Kelvin: you want "k" if you mean 1000.

And secondly, you actually want to use a different prefix: 50000μF is 50mF.

Alex

Who cares?

 

[amarsicola]

Anyone buying the Soncoz over this?

I wouldn't. You can check also the Audiophonics implementation with more or less the same input gain settings and a bit lower price.

 

[MCH]

Who cares?

I do.
The word "science" is so many times invoked in this forum. Ok, let's start by the very basics then:
50000 uF is not correct, unless the manufacturer has measured exactly 50000 uF (not 50001 nor 49999)
50K uF is an aberration for the reason given, period.
50 mF is fine enough.
I know nothing about electronics, but these things hurt my eyes, and I am sure I am not the only one.

 

[Ron Texas]

Further proof that we have entered the age of reasonably priced high performance electronics. Thank you @amirm

 

[CleanSound]

This is the NCx500 DM Lux version.

Just look at this beauty. Most likely going to put an order in next few months after I sort out what I want my end game to be.

 

[Buckeye Amps]

Really? I have been using class D with my Thiel CS3.7 speakers for almost 10 years now, they are 2.7 ohms most of the frequency range and has 10" woofers, I can play loud bassy music all day if I want and it never gets hot. This is real world use.

One of my integrators I work with has speakers that dip below 1ohm (I believe 0.7ohm) and he uses them for reference level home theater LCR usage. Every Class A/B amp he has used with them would enter protection at the levels he was listening to.
He picked up the Purifi 7040SA monoblocks and they have never once entered protection/faulted or clipped.

So......yea, Class D obviously cannot handle lower impedance?

 

[VQR]

One of my integrators I work with has speakers that dip below 1ohm (I believe 0.7ohm) and he uses them for reference level home theater LCR usage. Every Class A/B amp he has used with them would enter protection at the levels he was listening to.
He picked up the Purifi 7040SA monoblocks and they have never once entered protection/faulted or clipped.

So......yea, Class D obviously cannot handle lower impedance?

But class A is class A, like grade A, grade D is failing, so class D sucks.

Yes, I lost half my brain cells writing that, how tell you colud?

 

[pseudoid]

I didn't see it shut down with any load. It just clips and gets distorted.

Would a "heat-profile" be a simple probe attachment and a temperature logger during your testing?
[Yes, I know, it isn't as simple as I painted it above.]
The data need not be presented in your great reviews; unless, the data shows some funky or extreme heat conditions that may impact reliability in the long-term.

 

[Buckeye Amps]

But class A is class A, like grade A, grade D is failing, so class D sucks.

Yes, I lost half my brain cells writing that, how tell you colud?

D is still a passing grade for some courses (my poor undergrad years and ochem, oh boy)

 

[Dougey_Jones]

No, class D has issues with very low impedances and will not output the current into a low load resistance. The class D amps will go into protection mode.

That's never been my understanding. Very few Class AB amps are stable @ 2ohms, whereas Class D is almost exclusively used to power 2ohm high current subwoofer loads for HT, Car and Professional applications.

 

[thegeton]

D is still a passing grade for some courses (my poor undergrad years and ochem, oh boy)

Q: What do they call the person who graduates last from Med School?

A: Doctor

 

[Doodski]

That's never been my understanding. Very few Class AB amps are stable @ 2ohms, whereas Class D is almost exclusively used to power 2ohm high current subwoofer loads for HT, Car and Professional applications.

Car audio and pro applications are not home audio applications and car audio gets very hot because the power supplies are designed for low impedances. You peeps keep stretching the class D truth and claiming they are stable into low impedances when they are not when tested thoroughly. They are prone to damage and frying. Running a 2 way or 3 ways speaker on a class D with music is not torture testing them. I've tested plenty of class A/AB amps that can run low impedances and run 4 Ohms for hours at full throttle without damage. I dare you to do that to a class D amp and not the exclusive models that are not representative of the average models.

 

[VQR]

D is still a passing grade for some courses (my poor undergrad years and ochem, oh boy)

I remember my upper level E&M course had 30/100 as a passing grade.

 

[Sokel]

I do.
The word "science" is so many times invoked in this forum. Ok, let's start by the very basics then:
50000 uF is not correct, unless the manufacturer has measured exactly 50000 uF (not 50001 nor 49999)
50K uF is an aberration for the reason given, period.
50 mF is fine enough.
I know nothing about electronics, but these things hurt my eyes, and I am sure I am not the only one.

If you read my post you'll see that I never wrote 20.000 or 40.000 μF,I wrote "about" 20.000 or 40.000 μF .
Only the 10-20% (depending the caps) tolerances is enough for me not to put an exact number.
My mistake was the K thing,which I admit,it's a bad practice we see all the time,but yes,is wrong.

 

[peng]

If you read my post you'll see that I never wrote 20.000 or 40.000 μF,I wrote "about" 20.000 or 40.000 μF .
Only the 10-20% (depending the caps) tolerances is enough for me not to put an exact number.
My mistake was the K thing,which I admit,it's a bad practice we see all the time,but yes,is wrong.

Even, K for k isn't a big deal. He should complain more about the commonly used term watts rms.

 

[MCH]

If you read my post you'll see that I never wrote 20.000 or 40.000 μF,I wrote "about" 20.000 or 40.000 μF .
Only the 10-20% (depending the caps) tolerances is enough for me not to put an exact number.
My mistake was the K thing,which I admit,it's a bad practice we see all the time,but yes,is wrong.

Was not referring to your post (only indirectly) but to the "who cares" comment.

 

[pablolie]

Both the units for capacitance and inductance (Farad and Henry respectively) are capitals. The preceding exponent (kilo, mega, tera... milli, micro, pico, nano) is very often misspelled andnoften confusing, so not unusual. In my line of work even professionals regularly use m instead of M (ie mbps vs Mbps) and it gets even worse with bit vs Byte...

 

[Dougey_Jones]

Car audio and pro applications are not home audio applications and car audio gets very hot because the power supplies are designed for low impedances. You peeps keep stretching the class D truth and claiming they are stable into low impedances when they are not when tested thoroughly. They are prone to damage and frying. Running a 2 way or 3 ways speaker on a class D with music is not torture testing them. I've tested plenty of class A/AB amps that can run low impedances and run 4 Ohms for hours at full throttle without damage. I dare you to do that to a class D amp and not the exclusive models that are not representative of the average models.

Name some Class D amps that can't run @ 4ohms for hours at full throttle without damage?

 

[pseudoid]

Both the units for capacitance and inductance (Farad and Henry respectively) are capitals. The preceding exponent (kilo, mega, tera... milli, micro, pico, nano) is very often misspelled andnoften confusing, so not unusual. In my line of work even professionals regularly use m instead of M (ie mbps vs Mbps) and it gets even worse with bit vs Byte...

It hurts to see some disrespectful use of Hertz (Hz). I squint and take everything else following it with some grains of salt.

I mentored under an old (as the hills but brilliant) RF engineer that used to intentionally pronounce GHz as kilohmegahcles (like icicles).
[So, to mess with him, I once handed in a 50page report that used "kMHz" (on page 19 only), he found it and told me to correct it.]

I used to love using "puffs" (pF) anytime I got a chance, even intentionally violating the proper units of measure (engineering) notation.

 

[Doodski]

Name some Class D amps that can't run @ 4ohms for hours at full throttle without damage?

Name some that can.