Merrill Audio VERITAS Amps: Any other experiances?

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.

You are wrong Guido..Quote from the 6Moons article.." Bruno
came in contact with Jean Peter in 2001. "Bruno by then was working on a new Class D design," (The Ncore for Phillips). Ncore as I mentioned earlier, was and still is a Philips trademark in Europe, while Bruno was working for Philips Digital Systems in 2001. Jean Peter, who started Hypex in his attic in 1996 building a 750 watt mono amp for active subwoofers, was so impressed with Bruno Putzeys prototype in 2001, that he struck a deal with Philips to use the Ncore technology with the Hypex name and by 2004 the Hypex UcD 180ST power module was marketed and used in Hypex subwoofers...regardless which newer Class D power modules were designed beyond 2005 at Hypex, their very first Class D power module, the UcD 180ST, was developed and built during 2003/2004 for the Hypex subwoofer...

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.

Guido.. one of the articles I read during the past month on the history of Ncore/Hypex, appears to have conflicting accuracies. One article I read states tha the UcD power module that Bruno built in 2001 while working for Philips Digital Systems, states the main circuit in the amp is referred to as the "Ncore circuit" which is where the name originally came from, which would make the term "Ncore" an intellectual property of Philips. Jean Peter mentions he holds the U.S. trademark on Ncore but never mentions in any interview that he owns the trademark in Europe which is filed in Geneva and the deal he cut with Philips back in 2004/2005 was to pay them a annual license fee to use the Ncore name and UcD power module patents that were part of Philips Digital Systems in 2001. I am moving on and spending no more time on this issue. If you explore and dig deep enough on the net, you will run into the same info whether accurate or not.

Audiozon,

His patent application lists him as Patrik Brostrom of Abletec, I will take your word for it that is a typo and he is Patrik Bostrom of Abletec.

But one thing that is absolutely clear from the diagrams in the patent is that his design uses pulse width modulation. In fact, google it and read the patent yourself - he actually says himself he is presenting a new way of doing pulse width modulation.

I think perhaps the confusion is that for the feedback and input structures that feed the Class D switch, he uses a phase shift modulation.
This is actually not novel - this is described in papers 7 years old by Bruno - and I doubt he invented this either - its probably been around for a long time.

But at the end of the day all Class D amps are a switch to a positive voltage rail and a switch to a negative voltage rail followed by a LC filter, switching around 400-500kHz speed. The only way to create the desired audio signal is to pulse width modulate the switches.
The art is in how you space out the switches to create the best quality audio signals - what kind of feedback scheme you use, how you modulate the input, etc

You peaked my engineering curiosity though that this may be something radically new - even though it was not it was fun to look into! :)