Re: Another DIY SS Amplifier with NVA Boards
Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2018 8:19 pm
As promised, here are a few impressions of the rebuilt amp with the simplified power supply.
The simple power supplied amp, has a lower noise floor than the twin carb supplied amp I had before, but there's more to it than that and before you think I'm about to start on that "instruments emerging from an inky black silence" audiophile bullshit, you can rest easy. There's no such thing as inky black silence unless you live in the vacuum of space; no, what the ultra-low noise floor allows, is for you to better hear the silence behind whatever is going on in the recording.
Reverb tails or repeat echo effects decay naturally into the studio or venue space and can be heard to do so, even with louder instruments playing at the same time. Now when that happens, you get a far better sense of a human musical event happening between the speakers, which in turn, leads to greater involvement with the performance on the part of the listener, because the aural clues to the space, real or artificial are preserved intact.
This may sound somewhat abstract, but the ability of a piece of equipment to pull off this feat is paramount, if the sense of music happening in front of you is not to be compromised. I'm not talking about "detail" or any of that hi-fi nonsense; this is something else and once you are tuned into it, the absence of it becomes obvious. Now I've heard it, it has become a basic requirement for music reproduction. This NVA DIY build has that requirement nailed and not many amps I've heard have it down anywhere near as well.
So having had the basics laid down by the DIY NVA so convincingly, we can move on to the more concrete ablities of this piece of equipment. For example, solo piano is notoriously difficult for a piece of equipment to get to grips with due to the complexity of the overtones and harmonics the thing produces and the percussive nature of hammers on strings. The NVA preserves the harmonic structures of the instrument and the attack, sustain and decay, like nothing I've heard short of a top end SET amplifier. Hell, it makes my speakers sing like I've never heard them sing before.
You get piano, player, and hall, all interacting with each other to an extent that for all intents and purposes, the performer might as well be playing just for you. If, like me, you are trying to practice mindfulness and are only having limited success, the ability of this amp to take you into the centre of the performance will bring you right into "the Now" and keep you there with a disarming ease that is brilliant.
With groups of musicians, whether jazz ensembles, string quartets, full orchestras, choirs, rock groups or anything in between, you get the full picture of what is going on, and where. You can follow all of the instruments, all the time, hear the interactions on single take studio recordings and live performances and what's more, even to a non-musician like me, those interactions and harmonic relationships make sense, you hear not only the individual bits, but also how it fits together as a whole.
Those old Blue Note jazz records from the 50s and 60s seem to be lit from inside by some primal force.Lou Donaldson's Hammond driven sax workouts such as "Everything I do Gonna be Funky From Now On" are a case in point and hit the monkey bone right on.
On the soul front The Temptations' "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" and "Law of the Land" ooze atmosphere and menace. Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" is complex and layered with bubbling bass synths, insistent hi-hats and funky brass stabs melding together into a funked up festival of sheer infectious joyfulness.
OK..now the superlatives are out of the way, you should be getting the general idea that I like this amp.....a lot.
The Doc's philosophy that all components get in the way of the music is an interesting one. Having heard for myself the effect of removing unnecessary components from the PSU, I think you absolutely have to take what he is saying, and has been saying for years, very seriously. The man is damned right and if that brands me as a "Dunn Disciple" in the eyes of the more mainstream hi-fi fora, then so be it. I don't give a monkey's, it's their loss and they are welcome to keep faffing with spikes, cable risers and magic fuses in their quest for something or other.
This is the first time I have ever reviewed a system and not mentioned bass, treble, midrange, detail, texture, speed, dynamics or slam; I didn't have to. Now that is quite interesting.
The simple power supplied amp, has a lower noise floor than the twin carb supplied amp I had before, but there's more to it than that and before you think I'm about to start on that "instruments emerging from an inky black silence" audiophile bullshit, you can rest easy. There's no such thing as inky black silence unless you live in the vacuum of space; no, what the ultra-low noise floor allows, is for you to better hear the silence behind whatever is going on in the recording.
Reverb tails or repeat echo effects decay naturally into the studio or venue space and can be heard to do so, even with louder instruments playing at the same time. Now when that happens, you get a far better sense of a human musical event happening between the speakers, which in turn, leads to greater involvement with the performance on the part of the listener, because the aural clues to the space, real or artificial are preserved intact.
This may sound somewhat abstract, but the ability of a piece of equipment to pull off this feat is paramount, if the sense of music happening in front of you is not to be compromised. I'm not talking about "detail" or any of that hi-fi nonsense; this is something else and once you are tuned into it, the absence of it becomes obvious. Now I've heard it, it has become a basic requirement for music reproduction. This NVA DIY build has that requirement nailed and not many amps I've heard have it down anywhere near as well.
So having had the basics laid down by the DIY NVA so convincingly, we can move on to the more concrete ablities of this piece of equipment. For example, solo piano is notoriously difficult for a piece of equipment to get to grips with due to the complexity of the overtones and harmonics the thing produces and the percussive nature of hammers on strings. The NVA preserves the harmonic structures of the instrument and the attack, sustain and decay, like nothing I've heard short of a top end SET amplifier. Hell, it makes my speakers sing like I've never heard them sing before.
You get piano, player, and hall, all interacting with each other to an extent that for all intents and purposes, the performer might as well be playing just for you. If, like me, you are trying to practice mindfulness and are only having limited success, the ability of this amp to take you into the centre of the performance will bring you right into "the Now" and keep you there with a disarming ease that is brilliant.
With groups of musicians, whether jazz ensembles, string quartets, full orchestras, choirs, rock groups or anything in between, you get the full picture of what is going on, and where. You can follow all of the instruments, all the time, hear the interactions on single take studio recordings and live performances and what's more, even to a non-musician like me, those interactions and harmonic relationships make sense, you hear not only the individual bits, but also how it fits together as a whole.
Those old Blue Note jazz records from the 50s and 60s seem to be lit from inside by some primal force.Lou Donaldson's Hammond driven sax workouts such as "Everything I do Gonna be Funky From Now On" are a case in point and hit the monkey bone right on.
On the soul front The Temptations' "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" and "Law of the Land" ooze atmosphere and menace. Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" is complex and layered with bubbling bass synths, insistent hi-hats and funky brass stabs melding together into a funked up festival of sheer infectious joyfulness.
OK..now the superlatives are out of the way, you should be getting the general idea that I like this amp.....a lot.
The Doc's philosophy that all components get in the way of the music is an interesting one. Having heard for myself the effect of removing unnecessary components from the PSU, I think you absolutely have to take what he is saying, and has been saying for years, very seriously. The man is damned right and if that brands me as a "Dunn Disciple" in the eyes of the more mainstream hi-fi fora, then so be it. I don't give a monkey's, it's their loss and they are welcome to keep faffing with spikes, cable risers and magic fuses in their quest for something or other.
This is the first time I have ever reviewed a system and not mentioned bass, treble, midrange, detail, texture, speed, dynamics or slam; I didn't have to. Now that is quite interesting.