Hattor Audio Class D (Hypex)

[Sam Lord]

Just a friendly rant here.  It might perform great, but like many other nCore amps like Nord, and even Hypex's OWN nC400 DIY chassis, there is poor wiring and/or layout.  The Nord stereo models especially should be avoided: the module and terminal layouts are honestly ridiculous.  All amplifiers should have virtually no wire (okay, trafo designs excepted), but in any class D amp you need very short and well-twisted wire.  Output terminations should be as _close_ as possible, not a foolish ~1.5" apart as here.  Monoblocks with short, fat cables are necessary to get the _full_ benefit of the extremely high damping of class D amps.  The best pre-drilled DIY chassis is from Ghent Audio, but even its best layout (of the two choices), which orients the amplifier module correctly, uses long AC input and supply rail connections.  Rant over, they will probably sound great anyway.      

[Sam Lord]

14 hours ago, m5sime said:

The layout of the Hattor amplifier looks alot better and much more use of PCB 

 

Indeed it does.  Greater use of PCBs doesn't help sound unless you are doing a lot more with ground planes, but it doesn't hurt.  This amp IS better than most nCores I've seen.  The best was a DIY designed by barrows.  They should have twisted the rail wire harness (from PS to amp module) much more, but the excessive binding post separation isn't a dealbreaker: it really depends on symmetry of the radiated field in the chassis.  I saw some photos of good design choices (discrete stepped attenuators) on Hattor's preamp and integrated amp, so that's worth considering.  Really, integrated amps will perform _better_ than separates for very high-end gear, since integrated amps can incorporate variable gain as opposed to gain + external-preamp attenuation.  It's a real shame that so few companies do this; I can't think of any right now.  Perhaps Ayre.

[Sam Lord]

On 6/6/2017 at 5:56 PM, afgverhart said:

This is how the wiring of the Hypex nCore looks in a Ghent Audio enclosure.

That's the one with the worse of the two available positions of the amp module.  These chassis have holes to rotate that module 90deg clockwise, so that the input and output wires are sensibly short.  But the PS is still very wrong, it should be also 90deg more clockwise and much closer to the back panel.

 

But then, all the predrilled mono nCore400 chassis have this layout.  It's easier to build, but worse for internal noise.  Ghent offered to build chassis to my spec but  I had to buy 20 samples.  I've delayed my build for a stupid two years because I'm stubborn about layout.  I now have the 4 chassis (for vertical biamping), but dread all the extra infernal drilling.

 

There IS width, barely, to rotate the PS in that chassis, but not enough to set it right against the back panel.  But to do that, you must _redrill_ and shove the amp module all the way to the side, save the required 6mm clearance.  Sigh.

[Sam Lord]

7 hours ago, afgverhart said:

@Sam Lord Do you have a picture of the layout that you prefer over the layout that I used?

 

There is one on the Ghentaudio page, but below are mine.  I _DO_ think Ghentaudio's cases are the best for most DIYers because of the better layout option but several other reasons as well, such as ventilation, the AC input orientation, LED up front (I'll use it to indicate on vs. standby, not on/off) and a few other reasons.  The first two images are how Ghentaudio allows you to arrange them, the bottom is my proposed (and soon to be redrilled) layout.  Look at the connection lengths: mine has <1 inch to the inputs, very short to outputs, and much shorter AC and power rail harnesses.  There are lots of subtle changes though: you should grind away the anodizing layer at _all_ the chassis connections and of course grounding posts, it is not a good conductor!  Cheers

 

 

Much better position, amp module oriented nicely 90 deg clockwise from the below layout.  The holes for this layout are already there, and shown in diagrams on their website!  Good for Ghent!

 

Poorer of the two Ghentaudio predrilled layouts:  

 

How I want it.  A fair amount of hole and notch drilling is necessary, along with with re-terminating some harnesses to make them much shorter.  I might use Cardas CPBP binding posts, would only need 2 more holes.

[Sam Lord]

1 hour ago, m5sime said:

@Sam Lord I decided to order the amazingly well engineered Hattor Audio amps as they really improve on cable lengths and build quality on others I have seen.

 

I would have done as you have/will with your DIY, but decided on the nc500 modules and also wanted flexibility on the input buffer as Nord amplifiers invented.  

 

My amplifier will also have switched inputs and unbalanced to balanced conversion.. 

 

Impressive layout I think!

 

 

They also believe in soldering the nc500 module rather than edge connector 

 

 

Yes, it really looks good.  All the products look so finished on the site, I'm surprised they dropped the monoblocks.  Monos are perfectly suited to NCore because you get to full benefit of the extreme damping factor, at least if your speaker cables are short and heavy-gauge, and if your speaker's hookup wires are also beefy.  The other pieces look so good, I wonder why we haven't seen them until recently.  Hopefully we'll get some reports.  Please let us know how you like them; the NC500s are said to be even nicer than the NC400s.