boXem ARTHUR 2408/N2 Review (Stereo Amplifier)

[Matias]

March Audio P122 is another amp based on NCore NC122MP and got a slightly higher SINAD for some reason.

March Audio P122 Class D Amplifier Measurements

This is a write-up and detailed measurements of the March Audio P122 class D Hypex based stereo power amplifier. It was sent to me by the company (@March Audio). The P122 costs US $750. Due to my relationship with company owner, I won't be performing a review or providing a recommendation...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[amirm]

March Audio P122 is another amp based on NCore NC122MP and got a slightly higher SINAD for some reason.

This amp was very sensitive to the mounting of the speaker terminals. I plan to tear down my dummy load and make sure everything is as good as when I built it. It is possible it has degraded which comes to surface depending on the damping factor of the amplifier.

 

[gsp1971]

View attachment 173013
I have more colors

Both the PA5 and Arthur are great products but they target different audiences.
I think the Topping is targeting the desktop market with the PA5 while Arthur seems better suited to be part of your main audio system.

 

[boXem]

March Audio P122 is another amp based on NCore NC122MP and got a slightly higher SINAD for some reason.

March Audio P122 Class D Amplifier Measurements

This is a write-up and detailed measurements of the March Audio P122 class D Hypex based stereo power amplifier. It was sent to me by the company (@March Audio). The P122 costs US $750. Due to my relationship with company owner, I won't be performing a review or providing a recommendation...

www.audiosciencereview.com

On one channel. And for some reason, all other metrics are equal or worse

 

[Koeitje]

It is the module used that defines parameters and affects the price, together with casework. Yes, NC252MP OEM is not much more expensive than the NC122MP OEM, however it puts the amp one class higher concerning twice the usable power improvement.

boXem - Stereo amplifiers

boxem-audio.eu

The price increase seems reasonable, to me.

Exactly my point, I know that its all about the module (and not messing up the implementation). Its not that the 122 is bad or that Boxem didn't do a good job, its just that its outclassed for a very reasonable price increase. I see very little reason to buy a 122 when a 252 is in the same price category and provides so much more power.

 

[KxDx]

Yep, have been testing the auto on/off of the Arthur for a few days now and works like a charm. So you don't even need that your source has a trigger, and you can even forget your amp has an on/off button, or any button in fact

That's the #1 reason I haven't moved on from my Parasound New Classic amps. Seems like it would be a common sense feature by now.

 

[pma]

March Audio P122 is another amp based on NCore NC122MP and got a slightly higher SINAD for some reason.

March Audio P122 Class D Amplifier Measurements

This is a write-up and detailed measurements of the March Audio P122 class D Hypex based stereo power amplifier. It was sent to me by the company (@March Audio). The P122 costs US $750. Due to my relationship with company owner, I won't be performing a review or providing a recommendation...

www.audiosciencereview.com

The amp by @boXem | audio shows more consistency in the two channels, in other other words his wiring implementation is more correct. This reflects good engineering approach and increases credibility, at least in professional audience.

 

[hyperknot]

@voodooless I just found the same thing, I overlayed the two, PA5 red, Hypex blue.

I am curious about if in real-world acoustic music we ever have 2 W+ over 10 kHz. I made a thread about it:

Acoustic music energy distribution

I'd be interested, that for acoustic music or human voice (that is non-electronic music), how is the energy distribution over frequencies. I'm asking this because I'd like to know if a Topping PA5 or a Hypex NC122MP would be objectively better for acoustic music. Basically, here is a mix of the...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Madjalapeno]

... grabs popcorn ...

Not again, please.

 

[Lambda]

Would be nice if @amirm could export the data from AP to some sort of standard CVS format so we don't have to to this hacker and can just choose how we want to plot it an compared to what.
Or do a parametric search and all this.

Something like this would be nice:

 

[Lambda]

I plan to tear down my dummy load and make sure everything is as good as when I built it. It is possible it has degraded which comes to surface depending on the damping factor of the amplifier.

btw why have you stopped to using the "realistic" dummy load with complex impedance?

 

[peniku8]

For the Hypex based amps, I made a few measurements with a sound card to verify that I was not screwing up the implementation. For the Purifi based amp, the sound card is not good enough to show proper synthesized results. I am now building a measurement system with much better resolution that will allow nice pictures.

In case you're not entirely set on what devices to use, I'm pretty happy with mine. I use a switchable array of heating elements (16R each) as loadbank, which can be water cooled when testing amps above 500W of power (per channel), run that through a pmillett sound card interface (basically a sophisticated resistor network) into E1DA Cosmos DAC, fed by a Topping D10b. The measurement chain is ~120db SINAD from DAC→ADC, which drops to 100db SINAD with the SCI in the loop (which could probably be improved with a simple metal film resistor, but I like the convenience of the SCI).
Feel free to PM me if you want to know anything specific.

 

[testp]

They are not the most pricey either. Pricing is competitive with other similar offerings from Italy & Poland (for those of us in Europe).

Offerings from France are indeed a bit cheaper, but the quality of the case alone is enough to justify the extra cost.

Not to mention that the guy is available here if you need him (I think his name is Frederic if I am not mistaken).

Just my opinion.

i agree,
i do kinda wish boxem would have been able to offer purifi boxem ~1200 eur, that would've been a perfect package...

 

[Prana Ferox]

It's hard to see the value proposition of an NC122MP when the NC252MP (and products based on it) are barely more expensive. The 252MP-based Boxem is 100 euros more, or roughly 15% more for double the power. Even in more bargain basement products the price difference is small.

 

[testp]

That's the #1 reason I haven't moved on from my Parasound New Classic amps. Seems like it would be a common sense feature by now.

i'm amazed as well, feature everybody here are thinking about when it comes to buying x, y device; (how do i turn it off? what trigger, -cable, -remote i need to use this time?) wow...just wow

 

[TK750]

Great results as expected, by far and away the best looking hypex based amp imo. Definitely plan to pick one of these up at some point in the future (probably the purifi), and I notice UK delivery has been added to the site =].

 

[Deleted member 23424]

March Audio P122 is another amp based on NCore NC122MP and got a slightly higher SINAD for some reason.

March Audio P122 Class D Amplifier Measurements

This is a write-up and detailed measurements of the March Audio P122 class D Hypex based stereo power amplifier. It was sent to me by the company (@March Audio). The P122 costs US $750. Due to my relationship with company owner, I won't be performing a review or providing a recommendation...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Having recently tried to buy from March Audio I'm currently awaiting a Boxem Purifi instead

I can promise you that the difference between the two companies is absolutely night and day.

Dealing with March was without any hint of exaggeration one of the worst online shopping experiences of my entire life.

I wasn't aware of Mr March's narcissistic meltdown and subsequent lifetime ban from ASR. I learned of it after my order had run into complications of Mr March's own making. A very unpleasant person. And I can't recommend more strongly that anyone considering buying from March look elsewhere. Anywhere.

I'll always try to buy from independents and support the little guys who are trying to push the industry forward to the benefit of consumers rather than the benefit of directors and profit margins. But I won't support March ever again.

And I'm sure that the deluge of literally hundreds of email marketing subscriptions that I was signed up to (every night, at around 11pm (aka Drunk O'clock) local time in Western Australia) following Mr March's 'communications' were entirely coincidental and not connected in any way whatsoever to the order cancellation. Only a fool would think so.

On the plus side, I now know what day Bin Day is in almost every major town and an well versed on the US and Australian farming industries.

Amir and the mods on ASR are all in possession of all my communications with Mr March so feel free to ask them to corroborate my experience.

Boxem on the other hand have been an absolute joy to deal with.

I would have offered to send my amp to @amirm if it wasn't for US import duty on top of UK import duty. Perhaps it would be easier if Amir sent me his AP Analyser instead.

As if by magic, as I typed this post I received two emails: one an order update from Boxem.... and one about Food Farming Practises in Australia.

 

[boXem]

In case you're not entirely set on what devices to use, I'm pretty happy with mine. I use a switchable array of heating elements (16R each) as loadbank, which can be water cooled when testing amps above 500W of power (per channel), run that through a pmillett sound card interface (basically a sophisticated resistor network) into E1DA Cosmos DAC, fed by a Topping D10b. The measurement chain is ~120db SINAD from DAC→ADC, which drops to 100db SINAD with the SCI in the loop (which could probably be improved with a simple metal film resistor, but I like the convenience of the SCI).
Feel free to PM me if you want to know anything specific.

Spirit is somehow the same. I really love what @IVX did with the Cosmos ADC.

 

[enricoclaudio]

Are you Rythmik Audio? IIRC, I still own a plate amplifier I bought from you guys back in ~2000!

Yes Sr. I'm part of Rythmik Audio since Nov 2010. Brian Ding is the owner and designer.

 

[mdsimon2]

btw why have you stopped to using the "realistic" dummy load with complex impedance?

I would like to know this as well. Seemed like a good addition to the test suite when it was added.

Michael