Could Class D really be that good?

@atmasphere Ralph, great post and thank you for sharing. I also enjoy your afternoon talk here, which helps me understand some of the intricacies of class D design.

Thanks lanx, just ordered the V3 with the 32v

Class D amps have been getting better and better.  You have the "all you need is more feedback to lower the distortion" people....Bruno, for instance....and you have the "all you need is a certain kind of distortion" people ......Ralph, for instance..... you have the "all you need is a tube buffer to sweeten it up" people....PS Audio, for instance, you have the "We are using the best Ganfets....all the rest use junk" people.....AGD for instance, etc.  However, it is not just one thing.....this is what I say over and over.  AGD has had two updates to their "tubey thang" and everyone agrees the latest is the best sounding.....they are still using the same "magic Ganfets" they used in the original version.  Look at the Aavik amps that use the Pascal modules.....they have different versions of the basically same amp but they add more "active Tesla circuits"....more dither circuits, use a more damped and low hysteresis chassis (made from copper) and use more tweaky feet in their more expensive ones.....same Pascal module used in each one.....but all the reviews state the more expensive ones sound better.  So, they are selling you more tweaked versions.  This is exactly what I do to Purifi, Ncore, etc. amps......I tweak them to make them sound better.  They will not measure any better.....just like the various more expensive Aaviks don't measure any better.....they just sound better.  The new $10K Ganfet amp from Mytek has been promised for over 3 years......but supposedly is starting to ship soon?....he he.  Like waiting for Godot.  Laiv audio is said to be working on a GAN class d amp.  Their new $2700 Harmony DAC is the latest rage.  .  It is interesting that Aavik now has a class A amp as their reference amp....so they think class a is still the best (well, for $70K, it better sound great!). However, they are using a stock? Pascal module in their class D amps.   What if they used their own super class D circuit or one from AGD or Purifi or Ralph or whatever?  Still much more evolution to be had here.  Class A transistor amps really started to get tweaked back in the late 70s......class D really on has maybe10 years of serious tweaking. Here is a link to a post on Audio Circle where two people describe the difference between using the stock polyester Wima output filter caps and my modified Polypropylene Wima caps.  The comments worth reading are on the first page and the last page......everything in between is mostly people arguing about nothing

https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=118868.0

@jl35 glad can of some help. enjoy listening.

NAD’s Director of Technology, Greg Stidsen, had this to say: “Like all amplifier classes, there are advantages and disadvantages to class-D.  What is attractive about class-D is its relative efficiency and freedom from the vagaries of parts quality. In a linear amplifier such as class-A or class-AB, parts-matching and very close tolerances are required to get the best results, and even then, there is a limit to performance since the linearity of semiconductors varies considerably with temperature.

“With class-D, it’s more the quality of the mathematics and engineering that determines the performance,” Greg said.  “Another way of saying this is that in a linear amplifier the design is fairly simple, but the execution is critical; in a switching amplifier, the design is very difficult, but the execution is straightforward.”

https://pmamagazine.org/is-class-d-amplification-now-better-than-class-a-b-and-class-a/

(Emphasis added)

Greg put this pretty well.