Oh how I wish Class D amps ...

>>02-20-11: Muralman1
None but one solid state preamp will do their best with class D.<<

That is so lame.

How would you know that only one solid state preamp will work best for everyone?

That is true only for you and you alone.

There are many more experienced and knowledgable listeners/manufacturers/audio engineers/retailers outside of the muralworld.

You need to get out more.

LOL

Audiofeil, you know how low ICE impedance runs. Solid state preamps have great trouble with this. It is not just my opinion that most solid state preamps deteriorate the sound. That is why people use DAC volume, and others line level preamps. Tube preamps are fine.

I had a Musical Fidelity A3CR (Class A Stereophile rated FWIW) prior to the Bel Canto ref1000m monoblocks.

When I first listened to the BC's, the sound was so different from prior that I thought something was wrong. My ears were totally disoriented. We're talking night and day difference in the sound, not just something slightly different.

So these two amps sounded totally different. If you are sold on the sound of one, you will not likely take to the other without adjusting your listening habits along with whatever else. I found I had to adjust my speaker location a bit as well with the BCs in order to best deliver the new, big and well defined soundstage.

After a while I was able to discern a few key differences in the sound.

1) the BC were less hot and quite non-fatiguing in comparison
2) the BCs had a more open and dimensional soundstage which was perhaps the one thing that made most everything else sound different.
3) at first, the bass seemed to be gone with the BCs, then once my ears adjusted to the new soundstageI was able to detect that it was really there in spades and with much improved impact and nuance but again now within a much more open and 3-d soundstage

Wait a minute muralguy.

Let's go back to the "None but one solid state preamp will do their best with class D" assertion.

That statement implies you've evaluated all of them personally with your ho 2 ho amps. Now any rationale and clear thinking person knows you couldn't have done this. So why not be a bit more conciliatory and admit there is more than one preamp suitable for Class D amps. In fact, I've used a number of them (dealer disclaimer) with great results.

You like your system. Great. However, your combination is not universal. If so, more audiophiles would do what you're doing. In fact you seem to be on an island.

"Audiofeil, you know how low ICE impedance runs"

It is 10k - just a little low but many class D manufacturers use additional input circuit that increases impedance. My Rowland Icepower uses THAT1200 instrumentation amp to obtain 40k input impedance. Others use transformers.

Low input impedance is not related to class of the amplifier or modules used but to practical implementation. For instance the newest Rowland 625 class AB amp has 10k input impedance - by designer's choice.

My Benchmark DAC1 has 60ohm output impedance at 0dB XLR output jumper's setting (that I use) - no problem even with 10k input impedance. The worst case is at -10dB jumper's position making output impedance 1.6k. It might look to high for use with Rowland 625 but this impedance is resistive (output divider) and will only alter output level by -1.3dB