2. amps-preamps
  3. 1410953729

THE BLACK BY BEL CANTO- NEW REFERENCE

The new Bel Canto mono blocks that just came out, called BLACK BY BEL CANTO, weighing in each at 45 pounds, may be the amp I mentioned in a thread two years ago that had bee delayed for release back in 2013. The mono amp that John was working on back in 2012 was a Class D amp with no switching module replaced by a very large DC power supply. Reading the info on the website, would conclude this is it. Its also using a Ncore power supply as well. The large main power supply John designed would account for the heavy 45 pounds each. These new mono amps are part of a new three piece system. The amps are $15K each. Go to the Bel Canto home page. Scroll down to the very bottom right and click black face plate option and this will open up the new pages for the Black system. Has anyone out there heard these amps?
audiozen
guidocorona
4,298 posts
 
I listened to a pre-production unit of the entire Bel Canto Black system at RMAF 2013. It was a very sweet and musical sounding system, with very fine resolution and no glare.

Per my undrstanding of a brief chat that I had with John Stronczer at that time, Black monos appear to sport custom modules from Hypex... But it was not clear to me if such power conversion modules were derived from NCore NC1200 parts, or they were derived from upper end UDC modules with some NCore extensions.



Some information about the Black system can be found at:

http://www.belcantoblack.com/Bel-Canto-Black-MPS1-Powerstream.html

G.
audiozen OP
831 posts
 
The BLACK Class D mono amp uses a new type of transfer function design with the incoming circuit from the wall that is not found in any other Class D amp. There is no switching module, instead, the current comes into a A.C. filter then into a large D.C. power supply that sends the current to the Ncore power supply that was custom built for Bel Canto. This A.C. filter/D.C. power supply designed by Stronczer is known as the HSDR/High System Dynamic Range power circuit.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,664 posts
 
Sounds like the cat's meow.

I understand the design motiviation but large expensive Class D amplifiers seem to defeat the primary advantage of Class D amp technology for most, ie lots of drive and muscle in a small, light, reasonable cost package, er, kinda like the current BC CLass D amps.

Seems to me the efficiencies of the switching power supply, is a key to this.

The value might be if this kind of Class D design is able to outperform anything else. Could be. I guess if you really want the biggest and best, you should still expect to have to pay for it.
guidocorona
4,298 posts
 
Audiozen, I see no evidence on the system description page of NCore power supplies.... I see a reference to an NCore power processor, which I interpret to be a power conversion module of some kind...

"The analog signal passes through custom discrete Bel Canto balanced amplifier stages for current conversion and voltage amplification. Each PowerStream Mono Block holds a Bel Canto nCore Discrete Power Processor stage that can supply 1200Watts and 40 Ampere peaks to the loudspeaker with 128 dB of dynamic range."

Admittedly, the above is a bit confusing... I will call up Mr. Stronczer when I have time and will try to get a better description.... Will post it here.

Saluti, G.

G.
drubin
3,277 posts
 
I'd like to know what the story is with NAD's new M22 stereo amp. They say it uses NCore technology, but at 250 wpc and $3,000 I don't see how it could be either the NC400 or NC1200 modules. Wonder how it sounds ... ?
More to discover