Class D Technology

Don’t listen to the negative propaganda especially from just one or two who repeat the same thing over and over. Just try them for yourselves if interested and see.

Myself, I’ve had way less trouble finding top notch sounding Class D amps than others. Will probably never go back to anything else. If I had unlimited budget and/or went only with very easy load speakers, perhaps it might be easier to find other amps to match overall performance and sound quality I have experienced with Class D. But even so I have no reason to ever go back to anything else. My Class D amps do it all as well or better than anything else I have heard in recent years. If I were to seek a particular unique flavor of sound only available with a tube amp, maybe.

A good Class D amp is like a high performance car engine. it makes the entire experience a lot more effortless and enjoyable. Those who discount or ignore the advantages inherent in newer more efficient and overall higher performance Class D technology are doing others a disservice. I know I’m glad I went with my gut which told me to actually see what this popular and innovative newer technology is actually capable of before resorting to older more familiar solutions that never seemed able to fit the bill for me 100%.

savdllc (can’t "at" you for some reason) you wrote:

What I did state is that Class D designs tend to sacrifice fidelity in favor of efficiency, which is true in most cases.

This is the bias I was trying to answer, my apologies I did not connect my statements more clearly to your writing. I am unable to support this statement based on any evidence at all.

I do believe that Class D is in a much wider quality range of products than Class A. By this I mean from cheap portable music players to high end.

Class D is, numerically, overwhelmingly dominant and across every market segment, while the ONLY place in audio I know of with Class A being produced today is high end, often mono-blocks. (There’s probably some Bugatti with Class A amps, but lets get real) This may lead us to make unfair apples to oranges comparisons which don’t actually tell us much about the overall potential of Class D.

At the high end, I see no sacrifices being made for Class D except to my carbon footprint. I DO hear differences in amplifiers. However to hear those differences and say "OH, well Class D is inferior, so the A/B amp must be better sounding" is an snobby prejudice.  There are even some strong benefits, as some have very high damping factors (output impedance) and therefore more consistent performance across speakers.

I think that the subjectivity of the "high-end" can be quite trendy, or go pretty far from neutrality. If that keeps a Class D from reaching top-tier status, then it's just a matter of time before a vendor creates the right input buffer for you. 

Again, to everyone, please please buy what you like to hear, but let’s not use cost as our golden calf of determining what’s best.



Best,


Erik

mapman

Those who discount or ignore the advantages inherent in newer more efficient and overall higher performance Class D technology are doing others a disservice.

Don't be silly. Those who exercise their personal preferences here do a disservice to no one - except, perhaps, themselves. No one here owes anyone else anything.

David,

     My main points of contention are with your earlier post in which you implied that class D amps have inherent compromises in sound quality and your last post in which you said class D sacrifices sound quality for efficiency.  You don't specify what these supposed compromises are and I consider it irresponsible to mention sonic compromises in class D as if they were well known and givens.

      As a result, I feel the need to respond by stating that I noticed no sonic compromises when I replaced my class A/B  amps with class D amps.  

     In fairness,mitch2 did state in a subsequent post to yours that, when he compared some class A amps to the very good class D Acoustic Imagery amps (based on the NCore 1200 module),  he thought these class D amps had some very good qualities (bass, tone, power, body and lack of noise) but  they lacked the  'musicality'  that he perceived with his class A options.   
     Fair enough, in his system he preferred the class A ( not class A/B) amps because they sounded more 'musical' than the class D amps.  This 'musical' quality, by which I think he means that his system portrays a realistic sense that he is in the original venue listening to the actual performance, is obviously a very important quality to him as it is to me.  

     While I didn't directly compare class D amps to class A amps in my system I did compare them to my former class A/B amps.  I do not perceive a lack of 'musicality' in my class D amps (D-Sonic M3-600-M mono-blocks) in my system and room.  I have no interest in arguing the point or about why we had such different results.   I just think we're both fortunate to have found such good amp solutions and we both should enjoy our systems no matter what type of amps we use.

     The main point I want to convey is that current good quality class D amps perform very well.  Based on my experience they outperform my former good quality class A/B amps- Adcom, McCormak and Aragon-in all categories that count for sound quality.

    Getting back to the OP's original question:

"If it weren't for efficiency & power, would there be any reason to own a Class D amp? Do they beat Class A in any other categories that count for sound quality?"

      My answer is I do not think class D amps beat Class A in any categories that count for sound quality yet, based on others opinions who have compared them directly in their systems and my auditions of class A amps in dealer systems.  
     However, class D amps have so many other advantages over class A (reduced price,electricity consumption,heat, size and weight) that some may opt for class D anyway.   Then there are class G and H amps which I'm keeping an open mind about until I learn more and hopefully hear them.

     Other than the above, David, I have no issues with you.  However, I am a bit curious whether or not you utilize or offer class D amps in your HT business.

     I certainly have no issues with you voicing your opinions just as I think you have no issues with others voicing their opinions.  After all, I think that's the whole purpose of this very good forum.

Thanks,
 Tim        

Guido, in your posts you have indicated the Merrill Veritas are among the Class D amplifiers you enjoyed listening to and that do not display, "any displeasing high frequency artifacts or limitations."  

I owned the Acoustic Imagery Atsahs, which should be a close sonic twin to the Veritas.  Unfortunately, I cannot confirm the differences between the two since Merrill does not condone opening their amplifier casework and looking inside and I can find no posted pictures of the insides of a Veritas amplifier.  Based on my review of online information, the differences between the Veritas and Atsah amplifiers include, hook-up wire and binding posts, individually milled spaces inside the Veritas chassis - although both use solid milled aluminum casework, soldered wire connections (Veritas), and the use of the Hypex input board (Atsah).  I would not expect these differences to substantially, or possibly even noticeably, affect sonics as perhaps would items such as a linear power supply, input buffer or input transformers.  One listener over at Whatsbestforum who tried both amps (and ended up buying Mola Molas) posted this;

"They are sonic siblings. It would be silly to argue otherwise. The basic designs are the same. They both use the same unmodified NCORE SMPS and NCORE 1200 module from Hypex. Sonically, I would give the nod to the Veritas. They are a little more resolving, but not by much and I don't have them side-by-side. So, if an Atsah owner calls me out on this, I won't fight back."

So, proceeding on the assumption that by owning the Atsahs for over a year, I have a mostly reliable understanding of how the unmodified SMPS1200 and NC1200 modules sound, whether in the Veritas or Atsahs, then my question to you is, would you describe what you hear differently between the Veritas and the Rowland M925 amps that have earned the M925s a permanent place in your system? - Thanks