Merrill Audio VERITAS Amps: Any other experiances?

As a long time fan of well implemented class D, I am delighted that the new class D technology is making strides in popularity... There, I did have to say something in order to subscribe... So there! *grins!*

Uhrn, I suggest that this thread stay focused on its subject matter -- the Merrill Veritas, which is a monoblock product available now. The new JRDG Continuum S2 is an integrated device that no one has heard yet.... It might be best to go spelunking into Continuum's still conjectural innerds elsewhere on Audiogon for a spell. Lest we compare the taste of apples with... the photos of oranges *grins!* G.

Oopsie Audiozen.... I guess I's guilty as charged... I shall try to avoid casting stones.... well, real big stones at least are out! Now returning to Merrill Veritas and NCORE...

it would be great to hear from more users, Current users please post your findings on how the amps are progressing through break in.... How many hours of playing time will it take before Veritas stabilizes completely? And how different is a completely broken in Veritas from a brand new sibling just out of the shipping box?

Hmmm.... And If I may be permitted a borderline inappropriate request to compare Fuji apples with Galas.... Has anyone tried Veritas and ATSAH side-by-side? Both producs appear to be monoblock amps based on NCORE NC1200.
Any obvious sonic/musical difference?

Saluti, Guido

Audiozen, I have had the opportunity of listening to ARC D450M mono amps at RMAF for a few hours, and I found them to be wonderfully sounding amps indeed, so much so that I visited their suite thrice during the show. Unfortunately, I have not had the chance yet to listen to them in my own system, nor to compare their musical performance directly against any other amps, so while I would concur that D450M probably occupy a position somewhere near the current class-D pinnacle, I am not yet in a position of grading their performance relative to other new entries in the general top of the category. Have you listened to MB450M in your system, and have you had the opportunity to contrast their sound with Merrill Veritas, or other NCore NC1200 implementations? Please do share your findings.

On your assertion that Hypex may be owned by Philips, I have searched on the internet, but have not been able to confirm your statement. Could you point me to the source?

Regards, G.

Hi Audiozen, could you post the URL of the biography of Bruno Putzeys that is the source of your assertion:

"I'm referring to the original Ncore designs that Bruno developed..I was referring to Ncore only in my correction..not Hypex. Philips
does own the patents on the original Ncore power modules and the Ncore trademark. Bruno can update and vary his designs under Hypex and can use the original
Ncore platforms as long as he pays the licensing fees every year which also applies to the Ncore trade name. I read this info on a bio background on Bruno/Ncore."

Saluti, G.

Well AudioZen, all of this is a little sterile to my taste.... Why don't you source some nice amps featuring Ncore NC1200, Abletech, Pasquale, the ARC D450 monos, the latest Spectrons... break them in for several weeks in your 15 some odd systems, and contrast them in your reference setup, and then let us know how they differ once the class D rubber finally meets the musical road *grins!* G.

Ahah... Chocolate I do much prefer, and can munch any day instead of intellectual property sterilia!

I am delighted that the class D technology arena is showing such strong signs of springtime. I will add the upcoming offerings from Bel canto, Martin, and Hypex to my growing list of products and technologies to keep track of.

Saluti, Guido

Hi Dan, you just pointed out the crux of the matter... Listening tests are in order. Furthermore, a module to module comparison may be meaningful only for very basic amplifier implementations, where little is done around the Abletech or NCore NP1200 modules.... More complex amps are likely to have a sonic signature of their own, which may depart to a lesser or greater extent from the bare performance of their underlying processors.

AudioZen, per the detailed 6moons article at:

http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/ncore/1.html

the development of the Ncore module started in 2008 at Hypex, rather than during 2001 at Phylips. In 2001, Putzey was working on the development of UCD at Phylips instead. Putzey commenced development of Ncore technology only in 2008, well after leaving Phylips. This is a good thing for Mr. Putzey and Hypex, because otherwise any of the Ncore-related patents that have been granted since then, would be owned by Philips, and not by Hypex.

G.

Audiozen, all by itself, the page at

http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/ncore/1.html

does not appear to support an assertion of Ncore being in existance since 2001, nor of Phylips owning any Ncore trademarks and patents. The only way to support such assertion is to equate UCD with Ncore, which is a conclusion that cannot be directly inferred from the page in question. The work done by Putzeys whilst at Phylips appears to be clearly associated with the UCD module, rather than Ncore:

"Meanwhile Bruno was working at Philips where he also did some work for OLS, the mother company of Charles van Oosterum’s Kharma. In that position Bruno came in contact with Jan-Peter by 2001. Bruno by then was working on a new class D design for Philips and told Jan-Peter how this was becoming a very interesting development. The moment the UcD-baptized design was presentable, Jan-Peter drove down to Bruno's Belgian hometown of Leuven to hear and see what this new technology was all about at the local Philips research facility. According to Jan-Peter it took all of 30 seconds to become convinced of UcD’s potential."

[...]

""with UcD, Jan-Peter made a deal with Philips to use their technology in Hypex products. With the acquired 150-watt UcD reference in his pocket, Jan-Peter started designing and building the first Hypex UcD180ST module."

Per the passage below, Putzeys appears to have moved to Hypex in 2005:

"In 2004 these were marketed and used in Hypex-built subwoofers. In the same year the 180ST gained company from the more powerful 400ST. Unfortunately a year later Philips decided to freeze funding for Bruno’s R&D department. This signaled Jan-Peter that it was time to ask Bruno if he would join him in Hypex. Not only did Bruno make the move, Nand Eeckhout also left Philips to join the Groningen company."

The development of Ncore appears to have commenced in 2008 at Hypex, and completed in 2010:

""The development of the next generation of amplifiers now known as Ncore® began in 2008 but got delayed a bit because what had to happen first was setting up a volume production infrastructure for the UcD modules."

[...]

"With the UcD production facilities in place, the work on the Ncore® development could proceed. This culminated in the first prototype by the end of 2008. The fully developed NC1200 module finished around the summer of 2010."

A different source, the February 2008 Putzey bio on IEEE Spectrum at

http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/bruno-putzeys-the-sound-of-music-extended-play

also supports the assertion that Putzey work at Phylips was associated with UCD, but cannot be used to corroborate Phylips's association with Ncore:

"In 2001, while working at Philips Applied Technologies in Leuven, Belgium, Putzeys designed a compact, versatile class-D amplifier module that he called
UcD, for ”Universal class-D.” Over the past few years, dozens of amplifier models, with prices ranging from US $500 to $8500, have been built around Putzeys’s
modules, which are now manufactured under license by Hypex Electronics of Groningen, Netherlands."

[...]

"In May 2005, he followed
his modules to Hypex, where he is now the chief tech guru."

There is no explicit mention of Ncore,but there is a hint at new technology that remains unnamed:

"Not long after, Putzeys left Philips for Hypex, where he has pretty much free rein to explore the boundaries of class-D. Just ”for fun,” he recently designed
an audio amplifier with 0.0003 percent total harmonic distortion, at full power, amplifying a 20-kilohertz signal. That figure is more than 1000 times
better than some very good solid-state amps. In fact, it’s an improvement that no human ear can detect, as Putzeys acknowledges."

Back to the 6moons article, the following passage clearly implies that the Ncore trademark is owned by Hypex. The passage would also support an assertion that Putzeys's US patents on Ncore follow in the footsteps of equivalent non US patents on the same technology owned by the same parties.

"To protect his ideas as well as possible, a patent on Ncore® technology has been filed also in the US. Before the Ncore® name got stamped on the circuit boards and business stationary, many other names came to mind. Finally the name was derived from the most important part of the circuit, the modulator heart. Bruno came up with the name and also drew the accompanying logo. As he put it, "to keep things simple, do it yourself but do it good".

That mantra of simple but good runs through the Hypex company. Even though they know that with their Ncore® technology they have gold in their hand, they don’t just want to sell it to anyone."

Bottomline for the moment is that, if there exists direct evidence that the Ncore trademark and patents are owned by Phylips, I have not found it yet.

G.

My apologies AudioZen. Unfortunately, you are the author of an extraordinary claim which, to be taken seriously, requires extraordinary proof, whose onus remains on you to exhibit. If you ever find the European article which asserts that Ncore was invented at Phylips prior to Mr. Putzeys joining Hypex, and if such article is authoritative, I invite you to post a citation and link to this thread. Alternatevely, you may try to dredge out trademark information from Phylips themselves. Until then, I can only point our readers to what I have found with Google: Hypex's CEO/Owner Jan-Peter Van Amerongen's clear assertion about Hypex's ownership of Ncore technology and trademarks on the DIYAudio site:

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/vendors-bazaar/190434-hypex-ncore-621.html#post3344017

where Jan-Peter states in part:

"Bruno started to work on NCORE in 2008. We [at hypex] have filed the patent early 2009 and we have filed the NCORE
trademark in 2010.

NCORE patent and trademarkt is fully owned by Hypex, there are no other companies involved in Hypex. Both the NCORE patent and trademark are granted in
the USA. Thereby Hypex is solely owned by one owner.....

"

I respect your decision to abandon a line of argument which seems -- prima face -- to be conflicting with the verifiable public record. Yet, if you can ever provide it, I will welcome any extraordinary proof of the opposite. G.

Regards, G.

Hi AudioZen, yes you are correct. As Mr. Putzeys developed the original UCD technology while he was working for Phylips, the UCD acronym itself would likely be trademarked by Phylips. Furthermore, any patents related to UCD, which Mr. Putzeys applied to during his employment at Phylips, would be automatically assigned to Phylips. (Such is the nature of standard employment contracts in the technology sector... My own patents for example, remain all assigned to IBM, in spite of the fact that I have retired from Big Blue)

At a later time, in order to be permitted to manufacture UCD modules, Hypex would have started to pay appropriate licensing fees to Phylips for the use of that specific UCD trademark, and of the specific technology which is defined by those UCD patents owned by Phylips.

Conversely, Ncore technology, was invented by Mr. Putzeys after he joined Hypex, probably during the 2007 to 2008 timeframe, with basic development being finalized in 2010. It looks like Ncore invention disclosures were filed between 2008 and 2010, and would have been assigned to Hypex by the inventor(s) -- Putzeys et al. The Ncore word, within its applicability to the target technology, would also have been trademarked by Hypex, although there appears to be instances of "Ncore" used by other companies for totally different purposes than audio.

On a different topic, the name of the manufacturer of the power conversion modules inside the upcoming Rowland Continuum Series 2 integrated amp (and the Rowland M525 bridgeable amp) is Pascal -- just like the French Philosopher, rather than Pasquale -- which of course is a perfectly nice Italian name... But seems to remain sadly not associated with High End audio.

Saluti, G.

Are the Merrill Audio Veritas equipped with 20A or 15A IEC power inlets?

Thanks, Guido

Thank you Noble100 for adding to the Ncore lore... I was not aware that Mr. Putsey's was born in Poland at all.

Your conjectures are fascinating... Never the less, I never heard of any corporate dispute between Hypex and Philips, past, present, or impending. AudioZen, Hifial, and I are purely bonified audiofools. We are not proxies for any particular companies in this discussion, nor our monikers mask some high ranking identities in the world of High End audio. Our obvious passion derives from personal experiences, philosophical preferences, and some differing results when trying to root out extremely scattered information from the internet. On more than one occasion, we pick up the phone, and talk to some manufacturers directly, although up to now we seem to have limited ourselves to the Western side of the Atlantic. My own particular audiophilic specialty is recent Rowland lore.

I own a Rowland Criterion preamplifier and a pair of Rowland monoblocks, and am extremely fond of them. prior to M725 class A/B, the Rowland M312 ICEpower 1000ASP stereo was my amp reference.

I am intrigued by the apparently inherent musical potential of the new generation of class D modules from Pascal, Abletech, and Hypex... There exists already anecdotal reports of desirable performance in earlybird instantiations of amps based on some of these modules. I am looking forward to testing some of these amps in my own system, and to verify the soundness (or foolishness) of my hunches.

As for my origins and whereabouts... Yes, you are correct, I was born and grew up in Milano (Italy), lived in Toronto for two decades, and am currently living in Austin (TX). I now work for AT&T after almost 27 years with IBM. I am a contributing reviewer to PFO.

My scribblings on the intellectual property of Ncore are purely based on my own helter-skelter research on mostly secondary and tertiary internet sources. I claim no current inside knowledge from Philips or Hypex.

Note: Although there exist four IBM patents with my name on them in one way or another, I am neither a lawyer, nor am I an intellectual property professional.

Guido

Hi Tim, no worries!

In case you have not discovered it yet, there is a thriving community of Ncore NC400 DIYs crossing their intellectual antlers at:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?board=197.0

You will find the original post by Mr. Jan-Peter van Amerongen quoted by Hifial at:

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/vendors-bazaar/190434-hypex-ncore-621.html#post3344017

G.

Ufokillerz, unless your new Veritas are completely broken-in, be patient with them.... Estimate approximately 800 hours of making music for them to perform optimally. G.

All, my review and findings of the Merrill Veritas monoblocks has been just posted to Positive Feedback on issue No. 68:

http://positive-feedback.com/Issue68/merrill_audio.htm

Once the amps were properly broken in with 1,000 hours of active operations, I did not detect any musical bandwidth limitations, nor any stereotypical class D artifacts with Veritas... Only sheer music.

G.

Jtwrace, my apologies for any unintended humor...

Yes, I remember well what things sounded like in the past.

However, to assist my memory which is still short of perfect, I track equipment breakin in spreadsheets, where I write listening notes which get associated automatically with dates and hours of operations. Hence my reference to particular milestones in the article.

Hi APDOC, my absolute reference amplifier is the new Rowland M925 4-chassi monoblock. See:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1369518273&openmine&zzGuidocorona&4&5#Guidocorona

Concerning class A/B Rowland M625 300W stereo and Veritas 400W monos.... My M625 was a very early unit that lacked the benefits of some key circuit enhancements derived from M725, which JRDG incorporated in later M625 production units.

Predictably, Veritas monos with their higher power delivery excell in authority, size of both sound stage and instrumental images. Both amps are excellent at controlling difficult to handle treble "jaggies" in complex sostenuto passages and coherence of bass, but in this arena Veritas was superior to my early M625 unit.

Thank you Tim, if I have the opportunity of reviewing more amps, I will probably use a similar format... With the listening finding outlining the break-in progress until the device appears to have stabilized... I am concerned that more often than not, equipment is evaluated with a premature snapshot of its evolution, or within too narrow a time window, yielding an incomplete view of its real performance potential.

G.

Thank you Tim, you probably meant the Rowland M925 monoblock amp, which is my new reference amplifier... I have not written much at all about the M825 stereo yet... As I do not have that device in my system at this time, and will not be hearing it until RMAF 2013, where -- per the latest RMAF 2013 downloadable database at:

http://audiofest.net/new/americas-audio-show/export-rmaf-products-list/

it may grace the Joseph Audio suite. Until then, I will limit my comments on M825 based on what I can derive from published specs, and a very few facts that have been communicated to me by the factory... And just occasional personal flights of audiophilic fancy *grins!*

Saluti e buone cose, G.

Saluti, G.