Bump anyone tried ATI class D vs Nord vs Apollo
The amps from other side of Atlantic look really nice?.
The amps from other side of Atlantic look really nice?.
Bump anyone tried ATI class D vs Nord vs Apollo The amps from other side of Atlantic look really nice?. |
I had Acoustic Imagery Atsah monos, using the same NC1200 modules as Merrill's Veritas, and my experience was pretty much along the lines of what you all are reporting. I owned them over a year and could not quite get on-board with the sound of the Class D Ncore amps, particularly related to ambient cues where they seemed to sound different than what I have been accustomed to with Class A or A/B amps, or with live music. My attempt to describe what I was hearing (or not hearing) is that the sound seemed like musicians recorded individually in a booth and then the individual contributions mixed to create the whole, rather than a band playing together coherently. A better description that comes close to my experience is provided in the Mono & Stereo review of the Ncore Mola Mola Kaluga. https://www.monoandstereo.com/2015/08/mola-mola-makua-and-kaluga-review.html In the process of replacing them, I tried several Class A and AB amplifiers that I liked better than the Ncore amps and ended up with Clayton's M300 Class A monos. Surprisingly, like jbrrp1 stated, I find the bass from my Class A amplifiers better developed, fuller, more life-like, and more enjoyable than the bass from the Ncore amplifiers, which in contrast seemed a little over-damped. |
I had a pair of Merrill Audio Veritas N-Core amps that I used for 3+ years as my "summer" amps, but I never quite liked them running my TAD CR-1's. They just didn't draw me into the music emotionally, and the bass texture sounded problematic versus a VAC Phi 200, and certainly versus the PS Audio BHK 300 Mono's that I run now. The BHK amps are AB designs, and they are much more musically engaging in my system, with my speakers, to my ears, etc. YMMV. The bass problem in my system was particularly interesting, because the reason I switched from the VAC's to the BHK's was due to the VAC's struggles with the bass on the TAD's. That I preferred the VAC bass to the Veritas bass was striking. |