This is a review and detailed measurements of the Buckeye Hypex NC502MP based, 6-channel amplifier. It was kindly purchased and drop shipped to me by our dear moderator, @AdamG247. I don't know what it costs.
Not sure what there is to say about the case:
Or the back panel:
Other than the fact that it has trigger switch and that the XLR connectors are upside down. You need to use two hands to unlock and then pull out the cable. And heaven help you if you don't know there is a locking tab underneath and you keep trying to yank out the cable anyway!
In use, the amplifier is very robust, going into and out of protection with no shut downs (when overdriven). Note however that once it starts to clip, there is a high pitch whine from the power supply inductors.
Amplifier Stereo Measurements
I started my testing with the amplifier module all the way to the left in the picture above (opposite of AC input). Here is our warm up graph:
Was glad to see the unit stabilize in a couple of minutes so I did not have to wait forever. Once there, here is our dashboard:
I don't know what is going on with the channel in blue producing a lot more power supply noise (relatively speaking). Grounding made no difference. As a result, one channel is 3 dB better than the other. Averaging the two still lands the amp into our upper tier of all amplifiers tested to date:
Despite the power supply issue above, signal to noise ratio is excellent and superb if driven to max power:
Frequency response shows no sign of load dependency which can be common in class D amplifiers:
Multitone test gets polluted by the aforementioned power supply interference:
Crosstalk was not as good as I expected although in grand scheme of things, it is not bad:
Let's see how much power this thing can pump out starting with 4 ohm load:
We have more distortion than I like but that comes with a ton more power than our more accurate but less powerful amplifiers. Allow 1% distortion and we get even more:
Very impressive considering that you have 6 channels in this lightweight enclosure!
As noted, power did not increase when I split the measurement between two independent modules at each end of the case. This indicates we are amplifier limited, not power supply (each module has its own power supply).
Switch to 8 ohm we get better noise and distortion although the main issue is still there:
Multichannel Performance
I thought I was all set for measuring more than 2 channels only to find out the balanced cables I had bought had the wrong gender.
So all I could do was drive 3 channels at once:
What you see is the same stereo pair measured with and without the extra channel also being driven (not shown in the graph). There is no impact at all which makes sense as these are independent modules and nothing but the power cord is shared between them.
Looking for consistency between the modules, I measured each one separately:
Conclusions
While still way ahead of countless amplifier designs, the Hypex NC502MP modules are built more for power than ultra low distortion. Not a bad compromise considering the fact that running out of power is quite audible and rise in distortion probably not. Beauty of class D amplification is showcased by Buckeye in producing six times 600 watts of amplification in a light, and compact case. I will do a teardown later but so far, I am happy with what is there, sans the upside down XLR connectors.
EDIT: Teardown posted: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ypex-nc502mp-multichannel-amp-teardown.27648/
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Not sure what there is to say about the case:
Or the back panel:
Other than the fact that it has trigger switch and that the XLR connectors are upside down. You need to use two hands to unlock and then pull out the cable. And heaven help you if you don't know there is a locking tab underneath and you keep trying to yank out the cable anyway!
In use, the amplifier is very robust, going into and out of protection with no shut downs (when overdriven). Note however that once it starts to clip, there is a high pitch whine from the power supply inductors.
Amplifier Stereo Measurements
I started my testing with the amplifier module all the way to the left in the picture above (opposite of AC input). Here is our warm up graph:
Was glad to see the unit stabilize in a couple of minutes so I did not have to wait forever. Once there, here is our dashboard:
I don't know what is going on with the channel in blue producing a lot more power supply noise (relatively speaking). Grounding made no difference. As a result, one channel is 3 dB better than the other. Averaging the two still lands the amp into our upper tier of all amplifiers tested to date:
Despite the power supply issue above, signal to noise ratio is excellent and superb if driven to max power:
Frequency response shows no sign of load dependency which can be common in class D amplifiers:
Multitone test gets polluted by the aforementioned power supply interference:
Crosstalk was not as good as I expected although in grand scheme of things, it is not bad:
Let's see how much power this thing can pump out starting with 4 ohm load:
We have more distortion than I like but that comes with a ton more power than our more accurate but less powerful amplifiers. Allow 1% distortion and we get even more:
Very impressive considering that you have 6 channels in this lightweight enclosure!
As noted, power did not increase when I split the measurement between two independent modules at each end of the case. This indicates we are amplifier limited, not power supply (each module has its own power supply).
Switch to 8 ohm we get better noise and distortion although the main issue is still there:
Multichannel Performance
I thought I was all set for measuring more than 2 channels only to find out the balanced cables I had bought had the wrong gender.
So all I could do was drive 3 channels at once:What you see is the same stereo pair measured with and without the extra channel also being driven (not shown in the graph). There is no impact at all which makes sense as these are independent modules and nothing but the power cord is shared between them.
Looking for consistency between the modules, I measured each one separately:
Conclusions
While still way ahead of countless amplifier designs, the Hypex NC502MP modules are built more for power than ultra low distortion. Not a bad compromise considering the fact that running out of power is quite audible and rise in distortion probably not. Beauty of class D amplification is showcased by Buckeye in producing six times 600 watts of amplification in a light, and compact case. I will do a teardown later but so far, I am happy with what is there, sans the upside down XLR connectors.
EDIT: Teardown posted: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ypex-nc502mp-multichannel-amp-teardown.27648/
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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