Apollon audio vs Nord Hypex NC500 mono blocks which to pick

@nordacoustics Hi Colin, Thanks for taking time to responding. Better layout is always welcome. I will contact you over email and discuss about best way to get 3 speakers powered by NC500.

@geek101 We are in the process of new layouts to address this comment, there is no sonic gain and we have never had any issues in the past and we have hundreds of amps in the field. The Stereo unit is now shipping with the new layout to the internals and back panel with shorter cables for the input and output. Pictures should be up in the next few days.

There are a further 2 pro reviews on our website by HiFi Pig and HiFi Wigwam. Happy to discuss via our website. Regards Colin

Yes I did read the review at 6Moons, but no other reviews are there yet. Seems like Acoustic Imagery is no more and Merrill does not have those older amps on the website anymore.

There is a review of the Nord NC500 amp on 6 Moons.  If I remember correctly the Merrill amp was called the Taranis and also reviewed.  Also the Acoustic Imagery Atsah 500.  Reviews are out there you just have to look.  You are getting far to hung up on paper specs.  I have used amps with all of the "major" Class D techs with speakers that were more difficult to drive than the top half of the Aries and they all work fine.  The thing is they all sound different with different speakers.  

@jackd  I don't understand that , 400 Watts @ 8 Ohm, 700 Watts @ 4 Ohm all the way to 550 Watts at 2 Ohm. The specs for NC500 can perhaps only be bested by Benchmark ABH2 in the THD category. 

First 1 watt to 200 watts @ 4 Ohm THD < 0.001, Output impedance flat till 10 KHz slight dip from 1.5m to 1m till 20 KHz. Frequency response flat till 10 KHz and < 0.5 dB dip till 20 KHz.

How can one get an amp with those specs for $2K? and consume almost nothing in terms of power at idle.

Din't sell well is due to marketing failure perhaps, I wonder why there are no reviews for these amps.

Money as the 500 modules were twice as expensive.  Merrill Audio used to sell a stereo version but it didn't sell.  Colin at Nord got into it as a sideline to his speaker business and then the publicity he got from us on the AudioShark forum made his amp business take off.  The guys at Apollon came later and piggy backed on Colin's model. 

I wonder why no major AMP company in US embraced Hypex NC500 modules yet. ATI still selling NC400 based amps, which are still good.

Or one stereo and one mono depending on where you were planning on placing them and the width of your shelf.  The width of the faceplate on the standard Nord case is 13 3/8".  The 3 channel is the best choice price wise.  As the whole amp is modular it is easy to work on. 

@jackd I was planning to get three may be just get the 3 channel unit would be best ?.

Colin at Nord has been at it a whole lot longer and is easy to communicate with.  Unless you just want monoblocks for some reason all you are getting is higher cost and a second case.  I have had both stereo and mono Nord's in house at the same time and no sound difference.  There was a company in the US making them but they were just using off the shelf parts any DIY could buy.