The Hypex nCore build thread
- Thread starter occamsrazor
- Start date
misterdog
Not the canine kind
I soldered the leads to my IEC, mainly because I had no crimps of the correct size.
I took the speaker cable out through a compression gland, as it is only 30Cm. why bother with extra connectors ?.
I believe it's a safety thing. The IEC connections carry a helluva lot of current in the event of a short, potentially enough to melt solder connections. Were such a thing to occur, crimped connections would remain intact; soldered connections could come loose and cause more havoc or potentially short mains electricity to the case of the amp, which could injure or kill you.
Always crimp. You could crimp then solder, but never just solder. Also never solder then crimp - in event of a meltdown, the connection could still come loose.
occamsrazor
pfm Member
Am personally very happy I went the monoblock route, but if you're looking for a stereo build this post on the audiocircle forum notes that Ghent are now making stereo ncore cases....
cubastreet
Espresso Fiend
Not just a short, if there's resistance in the connection it will create heat also.
occamsrazor
pfm Member
Congratulations! I'm still very happy with mine - sure you will be too. What other equipment will you be using it with (DAC, speakers, etc...)?
Bradders
The Pork Chop Express
Firstly, thanks to everyone here for such helpful contributions and detailed instructions and images. Big help as I undertook the first amp build today
Only a couple of minor problems, first being the speaker connections on the nc400 board, which are hideous to work with. I ended up using braided Kimber cable to cut out interference, and avoided having the cables coming out facing each other, as this was proving too problematic with anything above bell wire.
Am on the hunt for some more practical cable to fix the issue on my next iteration. Will also improve the spade connectors and hear shrinking on the IEC connector.
Second issue was the LED light from Ghent was missing the metal mounting plate. I have improvised a temporary adhesive for now.
On to the next amp. Can't wait to get these things fired up.
Only a couple of minor problems, first being the speaker connections on the nc400 board, which are hideous to work with. I ended up using braided Kimber cable to cut out interference, and avoided having the cables coming out facing each other, as this was proving too problematic with anything above bell wire.
Am on the hunt for some more practical cable to fix the issue on my next iteration. Will also improve the spade connectors and hear shrinking on the IEC connector.
Second issue was the LED light from Ghent was missing the metal mounting plate. I have improvised a temporary adhesive for now.
On to the next amp. Can't wait to get these things fired up.
Bradders
The Pork Chop Express
I thought they were sounding pretty good, but wasn't happy with the job I'd done on the speaker terminals, so opened them up again last weekend to improve things.
Tightly twisted the speaker cabling, and terminated the ends more cleanly - this time completely eliminating any loops, and redid all the mains connections with pure copper spades.
The above tweaks, combined with giving the amps a week or two to settle in has improved things greatly.
In character, they are not a million miles away from the Bel Canto 500s. Very clean, open, detailed and powerful. If anything I'd say they are digging deeper in terms of bass output, and in detail generally. It's a significant improvement, and it's been an enjoyable process putting them together.
The cash I'll make from selling the BC's will now fund an SME V, so, there's another plus.
Tightly twisted the speaker cabling, and terminated the ends more cleanly - this time completely eliminating any loops, and redid all the mains connections with pure copper spades.
The above tweaks, combined with giving the amps a week or two to settle in has improved things greatly.
In character, they are not a million miles away from the Bel Canto 500s. Very clean, open, detailed and powerful. If anything I'd say they are digging deeper in terms of bass output, and in detail generally. It's a significant improvement, and it's been an enjoyable process putting them together.
The cash I'll make from selling the BC's will now fund an SME V, so, there's another plus.
misterdog
Not the canine kind
And for your next project a four box Paradise phono stage to go with it ?
Joe
pfm Member
Not really. They are not small boards,about 7"x4" each.
There are four boards at that size. You then need to isolate the boards from both heat and electronic artifacts ( each other ).It would end up a pretty large one box solution.
That being said,mine is housed in just two boxes but I run the simpler toroid and caps power supply.
occamsrazor
pfm Member
I had to use some crappy quality spades as it was all that was available to me, I wonder if I should redo with copper. Maybe someday but can't be bothered right now. Can we see a pic of your new wiring etc?
On another note, seeing as it's a slow Sunday, I'm interested what speakers people are using with their Ncores. My understanding is the Ncores are very flexible indeed about working with a wide range of speakers, but just curious what speakers people have found to work well with them. I'm using ATC SCM-11s, but don't have anything to compare to.