Hypex NC400 vs NC1200 vs 1ET400A?

[archerious]

All of them seem to cost around $1200-$1600.

Any benefits on one of the other?

How about the cheaper NC500?

Looking to power my Magnepan 1.7i, heard they like a lot of current.

Also considering saving for AHB2, but the $3000 price seems too rich for me.

Thanks,
Tom.

 

[EB1000]

In terms of value and performance, I'd go with the NC400.

 

[VintageFlanker]

Any benefits on one of the other?

Yes:
NC1200 : Power
NC400 : Price/performance
Purifi : measures stunning in all areas, and became cheaper.

In terms of value and performance, I'd go with the NC400.

That would have been true before Purifi became a thing. Nowadays, you can get a Purifi Stereo amp for less than a double mono NC400 DIY kits. The Purifi is technically better in all regards and lives no room for NC400 if positioned as the same price.

 

[CDMC]

Magnepans are almost a purely resistive 4 ohm load through most of their range. As such, they are not highly demanding on an amp from a current perspective. As long as the amp is comfortable into a 4 ohm load, it is fine. They are inefficient however. My experience says that having at leat 400 watts per speaker into 4 ohms is needed to get them to perform at their best. My personal choice would be the Nc1200.

 

[March Audio]

All of them seem to cost around $1200-$1600.

Any benefits on one of the other?

How about the cheaper NC500?

Looking to power my Magnepan 1.7i, heard they like a lot of current.

Also considering saving for AHB2, but the $3000 price seems too rich for me.

Thanks,
Tom.

If the 1.7i is not fundamentally different to the 1.7 the its not actually that frightening a load at all. Its a bit of a myth that Maggies are extraordinarily demanding speakers to drive (although I think a couple of models are). Fundamentally a 4 ohm load with moderate phase angles. The dip to 2 ohms at 20kHz is not an issue because music has very little power requirements at that frequency.

All the amps can drive it quite happily. However I have heard that Magnepan somewhat over egg the sensitivity at 86dB/2.83v/m.

I would say you probably dont need the power of the 1200 unless you want to listen at very high levels. The Purifi is the best technically performing and sounding (IMO) overall.

 

[OdysseusG]

I'm not sure how much tougher the quasi-ribbon tweeters are than the true ribbon in the bigger models, but I found out the...exciting...way that a purifi amp has more than enough juice to let out the magic smoke from Magnepans.

 

[CDMC]

I'm not sure how much tougher the quasi-ribbon tweeters are than the true ribbon in the bigger models, but I found out the...exciting...way that a purifi amp has more than enough juice to let out the magic smoke from Magnepans.

Which ones? The QR models are nearly impossible to hurt. You can tell when you overdrive them, the panels will slap on bass notes, or you will blow the fuse. The ribbons in the true ribbon models (3 series and up) are more delicate and can be blown, typically by clipping. I have found, owning a half dozen pairs over the years, the smaller maggies (SMG, .6, MG-12) really need at least 200 watts a side to fully wake up. The larger ones need more. I ran my MG3.5s for years with 600 watts a side in a pretty big room and pushed them to high listening levels regularly (over 100db). When I had them rebuilt by Magnepan, they said the tweeters were in good shape and not to replace them.

Rather ironically, I have only ever blown one fuse on my Maggies. Wife 1.0 manged to blow them countless times, including one time when she blew the fuses on each SMGa and one fuse on my Hafler DH-220. When I came home she asked why the stereo sounded weird. Wife 2.0 unsupervised is not much better. I finally fixed the issue, with my NAD amp set to low gain, -20dbfs for volume leveling, and my RME DAC, I can limited the volume level to ensure there is no clipping or overdriving, even with a 0dbfs signal. I no longer have to worry when I leave the house.

 

[OdysseusG]

Which ones? MG20s. Was doing some measurement sweeps for room correction and demons possessed my processor to reset to max 0dbfs. I canceled within a second or so but the damage was done. A previous owner was way in the deep end of tweaks so the fuses were bypassed, among other things.
I want to figure out something similar to cap max volume to avoid another such misadventure in the future. Shouldn't be too hard, the trickier question would be how much of a hit to noise levels there would be, and how much I care.
Side note, I have the Purifi on top and ATI 54xNC on the bottom and as far as I can tell both amps and woofers seemed unphased.

 

[CDMC]

Which ones? MG20s. Was doing some measurement sweeps for room correction and demons possessed my processor to reset to max 0dbfs. I canceled within a second or so but the damage was done. A previous owner was way in the deep end of tweaks so the fuses were bypassed, among other things.
I want to figure out something similar to cap max volume to avoid another such misadventure in the future. Shouldn't be too hard, the trickier question would be how much of a hit to noise levels there would be, and how much I care.
Side note, I have the Purifi on top and ATI 54xNC on the bottom and as far as I can tell both amps and woofers seemed unphased.

Put the fuses back in. There is a reason they are there. You can do volume limiting in software in most streaming programs, Roon, and Jriver.

 

[OdysseusG]

Put the fuses back in. There is a reason they are there. You can do volume limiting in software in most streaming programs, Roon, and Jriver.

I'd like fuses, now more than ever. Again, it's tweak city back here. It's not like they're just bypassed by a jumper, the entire factory back panel with the fuses and binding posts has been deleted. There's just a hole in the sock with extra heavy spade terminated leads to each driver running out to a nicely finished wooden crossover box (with cardas binding posts, not a 5/64 torx in sight).
What I've done on top of that is to remove the crossover box and run active digital xover via DEQX, using its digital outputs to feed ASR approved DACs (SMSL 500s) running into my amps and hooking the drivers straight up to the amps. It makes me look like a mad scientist who likes to live dangerously. I might be a little bit, but I'd totally reign it in a bit if I had the know how/skill with a soldering iron.
As to volume limiting it's a multiuse system, stereo audio as well as ht. I could just dial down the output of the DACs, but then since I'm basically doing a ht bypass for my multichannel pre/pro I only have so much room to keep the mains level matched to the rest of the channels. I'm shopping for a new pre/pro and digital output would be an awesome fix but I'm not dying to spend Datasat or Trinnov money right now.

 

[CDMC]

I'd like fuses, now more than ever. Again, it's tweak city back here. It's not like they're just bypassed by a jumper, the entire factory back panel with the fuses and binding posts has been deleted. There's just a hole in the sock with extra heavy spade terminated leads to each driver running out to a nicely finished wooden crossover box (with cardas binding posts, not a 5/64 torx in sight).
What I've done on top of that is to remove the crossover box and run active digital xover via DEQX, using its digital outputs to feed ASR approved DACs (SMSL 500s) running into my amps and hooking the drivers straight up to the amps. It makes me look like a mad scientist who likes to live dangerously. I might be a little bit, but I'd totally reign it in a bit if I had the know how/skill with a soldering iron.
As to volume limiting it's a multiuse system, stereo audio as well as ht. I could just dial down the output of the DACs, but then since I'm basically doing a ht bypass for my multichannel pre/pro I only have so much room to keep the mains level matched to the rest of the channels. I'm shopping for a new pre/pro and digital output would be an awesome fix but I'm not dying to spend Datasat or Trinnov money right now.

I can understand your pain. You could put an inline fuse holder on one leg of each connection to a driver. I would at least do it for the tweeter.

 

[Deleted member 19195]

The NC502 mp seems to me to be the best value. 350 watts/channel into 8 ohms. It may not measure quite as well as the others, but I doubt it would make ant difference to your listening enjoyment. Distortion well below audibility.

 

[Deleted member 15250]

for magnepans might as well get as much power as you can. I'd go with nc1200

 

[Nathan_A]

Yes:
NC1200 : Power
NC400 : Price/performance
Purifi : measures stunning in all areas, and became cheaper.

That would have been true before Purifi became a thing. Nowadays, you can get a Purifi Stereo amp for less than a double mono NC400 DIY kits. The Purifi is technically better in all regards and lives no room for NC400 if positioned as the same price.

The second highest rated amp behind the Benchmark is still the DIY NC400 kit that was using a shared power supply for 2 modules. If I'm reading the results correctly.

 

[VintageFlanker]

The second highest rated amp behind the Benchmark is still the DIY NC400 kit that was using a shared power supply for 2 modules. If I'm reading the results correctly.

Only if you're looking at 5W/4Ohms SINAD. The 1ET400A performs better in all others areas.

 

[Valhalla]

How about the cheaper NC500?

I've both NC500 and nc1200 and although NC500 sounds significantly good considering the price, nc1200 poses some higher level of listening pleasure. is sound more like real music than NC500. Actually nc1200 is among the best amplifiers I've ever heard regardless of the price. I was wondering how could nc1200 be compared to Purifi stuff.

 

[capslock]

Only if you're looking at 5W/4Ohms SINAD. The 1ET400A performs better in all others areas.

I once looked at all available measurements and came to the conclusion that the two are pretty much equal. The purifi is the more advanced design, which means it can get the same performance on slightly lower idle power. It could probably become better if one played with the dead time, allowing it to have the same idle consumption.

It's also important to note that in the Amir's measurements, only the manufacturer's demo kit was about as good as the nc400 build. The other implementations were kind of meh which might mean there is module-to-module variation or that the module is very picky about its supply, input signal and enviroment.

 

[VintageFlanker]

It's also important to note that in the Amir's measurements, only the manufacturer's demo kit was about as good as the nc400 build

This normal is since this is their evaluation board (= max performance achievable)

The other implementations were kind of meh which might mean there is module-to-module variation or that the module is very picky about its supply, input signal and enviroment.

Not exactly. The other implementations (Nord, NAD M33) have all custom input buffer that caused the measured variations. Regular Hypex SMPS1200 and input buffer (gain) bypassed and you'll get the same as the eval amp.