One other thing that just occured to me is that all my cars have class D amplifiers in them and I have been listening to them without complaint for years now, some of them not that new for sure. And while one can reasonably argue the environment in a car is not the quietest or perhaps the best for listening to music, still I find little room to complain about the sound I get in my cars. Why shouldn't we accept the validity of current class D designs and their very real benefits of vanishingly low distortion at moderate power levels, and an extremely low noise floor in the best designs currently offered, and keep in mind these are all contributors to an overall high quality sound. Never mind that some of these sound a bit harsh when pushed or perhaps a bit thin in certain parts of the audio spectrum or have other shortcomings. These issues are being addressed as the designs of these amplifiers evolves and improves. The fact that Legacy Audio is rocking the ICE modules in their amps speaks to their fidelity and to maybe a lesser extent their reliability. I will say that most class D manufacturers do not offer very long warranties on class D amps, often only a year or two, where many class AB designs get 5 years and sometimes more. So there is that to consider.
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I guess I have had pretty good luck with my Class D amps. I had a Peachtree Nova 300 running ICEPower modules, and it sounded pretty good. I now use a NAD C298 with Purifi modules (using a ProJect PreBox RS2 Digital preamp) and it sounds great. I also have a Peachtree Carina 300 (Hypex modules) and a Peachtree Carina GaN and they each sound excellent, not "dry." The ProJect has a selectable preamp tube stage for a little of that warmer tube-distortion sound. I would say the Class D amps I have tried deliver what I expect, lots of low distortion clean power and a dead silent background. I have other tube amps, a modded and tube rolled Willsenton R8, which as a push-pull tube amp is as different to the class D amps as might be possible but still with a dead silent background and excellent sound. I think class D offers tremendous utility in space-constrained applications (like car audio and plate amps for powered speakers and subs) while offering much of the performance of AB designs without the energy and weight penalties.
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Well, "10Audio" just did a mini review of a pair of class D amps and...ouch! I wonder if they were defective? https://10audio.com/atma-sphere_class-d/
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Audiophiles really, really want Class D amplifiers to sonically rival Class A and AB designs. What’s not to like, small size, low power consumption, low heat generation, and relatively high power output with low distortion. The same 10 Audio reviewer praised the Acoustic Imagery Atsah amplifiers (Putzey’s NC1200 modules) and rated them 10 LPs, yet they no longer appear in his system. It seems audiophiles want the Class D amplifier technology to succeed so badly, they convince themselves that each new technology or new offering is going to be "the one." This has been going on since ICEpower, B&O, and Spectron amps hit the mainstream in the mid-1990’s. While Class D has become the de rigueur choice for cell phones, car audio, and subwoofers, and despite having a few vocal fans and successful manufacturers (think Rowland), Class D still hasn’t become quite mainstream in the audiophile world. It has been almost 10 years now since I took the plunge with those same NC1200 Acoustic Imagery Atsah monoblocks that 10 Audio raved about and it took me almost a year to figure out the Emperor wasn’t wearing any clothes. What I heard sounded like separate musicians each playing their part in separate sound booths, and not a band playing together. The ambient cues were somehow off, but it took me a while to sense that. Music through those amplifiers just didn’t sound real. You can still purchase Mola Mola’s Kalugas but the other manufacturers using NC1200 modules seem to be either gone, like Acoustic Imagery, or to have dropped the line, like Merrill Audio. IMO, the most accurate review of NC1200 amplifiers was the review of the Mola Mola Kalugas by Matej Isak at Mono & Stereo who said,
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As long as you have high end manufacturers(that regularly post here) supporting this technology,and subconsciously influencing users,you will have rubes like the ones on A’gon making laughable statements like "buy a Fosi V3 with the best power supply for $140.00,it "WILL SOUND BETTER THAN MOST TUBE AMPS"(that’s a quote from a current thread)... |
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