Buckeye NC252MP Stereo Amplifier Review

[AudioKC]

The frequency linearity is not the best either.

You pointing out about slope down from 10khz with -1/2db?

For example, I do more adjustments for in room frequency response, so this -1/2db for many consumers is very much immaterial

Dirac live target curve

 

[Beershaun]

I'm trying to decide if this amp would be a good upgrade for people who have a Denon AVR. For folks looking to dip their toe in the external amp water and see if they get an noticable improvement. The gain is similar and you get ~10db better sinad. You get much better 4ohm max power performance but similar 8ohm and peak power performance. So any thoughts on whether this would make a noticable upgrade on say a Denon x3800 using elac dbr62s?

 

[musicforcities]

At this price, it seems like a class AB killer.

Except for not having any headroom and its 8ohm power is not stupendous. And most of my speakers are nominally 8 ohms and my living room speakers are small but fantastic stand mount Mirage MRM-1 (not a dipole) and have pretty low sensitivity (84-86db). Seems like headroom would be desirable for such speakers in a largish room, even with a sub crossed at 60-80hz.

Or is it not an issue in practice? I have run the speakers with amps ranging from 120 watts to supposedly 300 watts (though it was a carver sunfire 2x300 and I don’t buy the power claim) but always had amps with lots of headroom and high damping.

For example, the Schiit Vidar doesn’t have appreciably more power at 8ohms—though it does have headroom , measured well but not as well as this, and is almost $200 more.

Or does one really need to go up a pricing tier or two to $1200 to $3000 range for the latest ncore and purifi based units? Such as a pair of Nord classic monoblocks?

 

[Doodski]

That's not 20 to 20k Hz as it is only 8 Ohms. I mean across the hearing spectrum frequency linearity.

EDIT: I mean (again... lol) Across the impedance too. Sorry my arm is broken and typing with the left hand is tedious at best.

 

[Buckeye Amps]

You think that is what we see here; a measurement artefact caused by a minor mishap?

It had some impact on the first vs second measurement graphs. But another recent NC252MP module based amp (not mine) had a similar behavior/power at 20Hz. So it could also have been a slight revision (not major enough to call for a Rev5 listing by Hypex) that is a difference from 2020 vs now

 

[Buckeye Amps]

At this price, it seems like a class AB killer.

Except for not having any headroom and its 8ohm power is not stupendous. And most of my speakers are nominally 8 ohms and my living room speakers are small but fantastic stand mount Mirage MRM-1 (not a dipole) and have pretty low sensitivity (84-86db). Seems like headroom would be desirable for such speakers in a largish room, even with a sub crossed at 60-80hz.

Or is it not an issue in practice? I have run the speakers with amps ranging from 120 watts to supposedly 300 watts (though it was a carver sunfire 2x300 and I don’t buy the power claim) but always had amps with lots of headroom and high damping.

For example, the Schiit Vidar doesn’t have appreciably more power at 8ohms—though it does have headroom , measured well but not as well as this, and is almost $200 more.

Or does one really need to go up a pricing tier or two to $1200 to $3000 range for the latest ncore and purifi based units? Such as a pair of Nord classic monoblocks?

If you want more headroom, the NC502MP (the big brother) has more than double the 8ohm output

 

[Hipocrates]

So any thoughts on whether this would make a noticable upgrade on say a Denon x3800 using elac dbr62s?

It should, but more details are needed about your system. One thing is sure, this amps would give more current to your speakers and that always a good thing with modern small speakers. If you create a thread with details I bet people can give you a better assessment, hopefully without getting too emotional.

 

[Sokel]

@Doodski wants this which everything is under 100 SINAD for 8,4 and 2 Ohm and a little above at 1 Ohm across all spectrum (measured with high bandwidth,that's 40Khz up there) :



(link)


But yes,that (rightfully) costs.

 

[Doodski]

@Doodski wants this which everything is under 100 SINAD for 8,4 and 2 Ohm and a little above at 1 Ohm across all spectrum (measured with high bandwidth,that's 40Khz up there) :

View attachment 315712 View attachment 315713

(link)


But yes,that's (rightfully) costs.

I don't expect this...lol. But am just saying that if a person does they better be ready to pay for it. To the tune of maybe a used class A/ABamp for ~$4000 and up.

 

[Multicore]

I'm trying to decide if this amp would be a good upgrade for people who have a Denon AVR. For folks looking to dip their toe in the external amp water and see if they get an noticable improvement. The gain is similar and you get ~10db better sinad. You get much better 4ohm max power performance but similar 8ohm and peak power performance. So any thoughts on whether this would make a noticable upgrade on say a Denon x3800 using elac dbr62s?

1) I don't think you'll improve noise performance by adding separate power amps. 2) I don't think you'll notice the distortion difference even if it is measurable. 3) And if you know your Denon isn't supplying enough power for your speakers then I wouldn't think the 252 is enough of an upgrade. Look at the 502 instead or something even beefier.

 

[AudioKC]

That's not 20 to 20k Hz as it is only 8 Ohms. I mean across the hearing spectrum frequency linearity.

EDIT: I mean (again... lol) Across the impedance too. Sorry my arm is broken and typing with the left hand is tedious at best.

If I’m not mistaken, this graph shows

2 4 8 oms

 

[Doodski]

If I’m not mistaken, this graph shows

2 4 8 oms

It shows 4 and 8 Ohms. Which are pretty/very good but not arc welder amp domain into the low Z.

 

[amirm]

That doesn't make things any better. 122 W at 4 ohms is not even half the performance that the manufacturer advertises:

The resolution of that graph is very low due to my attempt to reduce stress on the amp in running all those power sweeps. As such, the knee measurement could be off by fair bit. I note it anyway as a power level but it is very much approximate since the graph goes exponential there.

 

[amirm]

I get what you mean but I think you are wrong or at least don't see the point nonetheless.

In this case we have a chart, which is the first thing people see, that shows 0 W and "protection" at 2 ohm loads. So the following discussion (I won't call it derailing as that is a negative word used for irrelevant discussion) actually reveals why that is.

What Amir should do in the wake of these kinds of "investigations" is add a disclaimer and an explanation to that exact graph so there can be no misunderstandings by those thousands of people reading the review. Don't criticize those that questioned it. Otherwise the erroneous interpretations might still be there for people to see..

2 ohm is not a valid load for amplifiers in general. This is why I did not even test at that level. It is only recently that I started to run it with Powercube. If an amp is capable of 2 ohm power it is the exception, not the rule. The notion that you are not going to buy an amp because it goes into protection 2 ohm makes no sense to me. I haver never seen a speaker dip to 2 ohm in 200+ I have tested. Heck, I don't remember anything below 3+ ohm.

BTW, this is why I loathe expanding my testing suites. The moment I do everything becomes important when in reality some are not.

 

[Doodski]

2 ohm is not a valid load for amplifiers in general. This is why I did not even test at that level. It is only recently that I started to run it with Powercube. If an amp is capable of 2 ohm power it is the exception, not the rule. The notion that you are not going to buy an amp because it goes into protection 2 ohm makes no sense to me.

I remember thinking 2 Ohms testing would result in amp failures and those major issues that pop up doing that sort of testing. I won't do it to most anything after a repair job because it's dangerous and too risky. But you have the test gear for this sort of stuff and not a general purpose O-scope and oscillator. Your new 2 Ohms tests are great I think but as you say they are outside the scope of the reality for most all gear. Most gear never sees a 2 Ohms Z and has a easier time with musical waveforms rather than sine waves.

 

[Jmudrick]

Add something like RME Adi 2 and a decent pair of speakers and you are golden....

That's my system. Feeling done is a good feeling.

 

[vicenzo_del_paris]

When you look at it, it is quite fascinating (in fact very distressing) how a single person can turn a review thread out of rails into a complete mess !
I guess that's the price to pay for "free speech" internet...
That's clearly showing that exposing technical stuff to people not understanding it without doing their homeworks is causing sometimes more trouble than expected.
And I don't really get all of these debates about casing used by @Buckeye Amps.
This has nothing to do about science .
Come on, tastes and colours is a personal matter and out of the question here.
Let's focus of the measurements

 

[restorer-john]

No, they should be honest and provide the information based on the complete frequency range. If they can deliver minimal 122 W (probably even less at 16 Hz) they should exactly write this. 250 W @ 4 ohms @1kHz doesn't tell anything as it doesn't have any relevance in real life - or are you always listening to just a 1 kHz tone? It is and remains misleading. I would never buy such a device. Never!

Chris, we've been having this argument for many years.

Until amplifiers are rated properly (not with dubious copypasta module datasheet specs) and reviewers test them against those specs, these arguments will continue. These vast numbers of inexpensive chip/module based amplifiers exaggerating their advertised numbers should be called out for their deceptive practices in no uncertain terms. No reccommendations for companies that misrepresent power outputs as people base their buying decisions on those advertised specs.

Interestingly enough, I repaired a little Teac amplifier yesterday for my father (some 80s piece of BPC he picked up goodness knows where, for a few dollars). 1kHz is always the reference level to start at and it hit its power output/THD spec easily. But below that, it was a disaster with one of the worst frequency reponses I've ever seen. Designed to roll off hard so as to not stress the power supply. It would have been sold with speakers that didn't produce much bass anyway, so it was a sensible, if not a HiFi decision.

But as always, if you don't like the protocol Amir uses, you can buy an analyzer, learn how to use it, and present your own results. I test my gear and repairs/restorations to my own standards. In some ways my tests are superior, in other ways not even close to Amir's. His testing is valuable, no doubt about that. Does it tell the whole picture? No way. Does it tell more than an online subjective reviewer? Absolutely 100%. Is it the gold standard? No.

But, ASR is free to view, read and comment on- that's pretty good isn't it?

 

[Deleted member 48726]

The guy is complaining that the amp can not achieve its rated 250W at 20Hz if I understand him correctly. How is that "wanting an arc welder"?

Yeah. I don't get the pushback for people wanting transparent specifications and amplifiers capable of supplying full power 20-20.000 Hz. Is that really a bad. I guess so if some say it is.

2 ohm is not a valid load for amplifiers in general. This is why I did not even test at that level. It is only recently that I started to run it with Powercube. If an amp is capable of 2 ohm power it is the exception, not the rule. The notion that you are not going to buy an amp because it goes into protection 2 ohm makes no sense to me. I haver never seen a speaker dip to 2 ohm in 200+ I have tested. Heck, I don't remember anything below 3+ ohm.

BTW, this is why I loathe expanding my testing suites. The moment I do everything becomes important when in reality some are not.

Well you mostly test small two way speakers for practical reasons, don't you. With phase and Z in mind I recall some of those even, that exhibit a serious load even if they are two way.

 

[TonyJZX]

my feeling is that at this price... ie. 450 euros to $575 usd... what is there better in class d or class a/b?

120w@8 and 200w@4 ohms is as good as you can get for this kind of money

is there better? i'd like to see it - maybe emotiva? i doubt it though