I'm a class D guy. Tube amps are fine but have not lured me to the dark side. 🌚
The Hifi Trajectory Of Class D Amplifiers
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I bought my first digital SLR camera back in 2005. Film SLR cameras were still king back then. Longtime film camera hobbyists and pros thumbed their noses at digital. Ten years later, film cameras have been surpassed by digital cameras and are nearly extinct. Millions of people use cameras. The market was already in place for anyone that would advance the technology of digital photography.
With Class D amps, you don't have a marketplace the size of the camera marketplace. There doesn't seem to be enough economic incentive to spend the necessary research dollars to advance the technology to get the same sort of improvement trajectory that digital photography has enjoyed.
Anyone care to speculate how long it will take for Class D amps to consistently rival the best tube, Class A and Class A/B across the board....and do it without resorting to the stratospheric prices that current non-Class D amps are priced at.
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I bought my first digital SLR camera back in 2005. Film SLR cameras were still king back then. Longtime film camera hobbyists and pros thumbed their noses at digital. Ten years later, film cameras have been surpassed by digital cameras and are nearly extinct. Millions of people use cameras. The market was already in place for anyone that would advance the technology of digital photography.
With Class D amps, you don't have a marketplace the size of the camera marketplace. There doesn't seem to be enough economic incentive to spend the necessary research dollars to advance the technology to get the same sort of improvement trajectory that digital photography has enjoyed.
Anyone care to speculate how long it will take for Class D amps to consistently rival the best tube, Class A and Class A/B across the board....and do it without resorting to the stratospheric prices that current non-Class D amps are priced at.
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- 42 posts total
Ten years later, film cameras have been surpassed by digital cameras and are nearly extinct.Mitch4t, I'm not sure I agree with your on this statement. Yes, digital cameras are everywhere & millions of people have gotten into "photography" as a result but IMO the film vs. digital camera is the same argument as .WAV vs .MP3 music files. The high compression of music files has made the file size smaller, totally wrecked the sonic quality but has afforded great convenience to the public to the point that 100s of songs can be stored on your portable device & played back at will. Digital photography too has made it very convenient to take photos without thinking much about the photograph to be taken because it's so convenient to delete the bad photos & keep the better ones. People are mindlessly taking photos because they can & the quality of photos (in terms of composition, lighting, artistic content), in general, has gone down just as fast. It's a great stride forward in convenience but many steps back in art of photography. Take a look at these photos - they are all take by a FILM camera (no digital). In fact, it is my understanding that Arizona Highways magazine does not accept any digital photos as their resolution is not good enough for even an 18X10 print! The photo quality is superb & very much like what the human eye sees - all boundaries are gradual; not stark/abrupt as in a digital camera.... http://www.arizonahighways.com/photography/photo-archive |
Bombaywalla, comparison film vs. digital SLR is very unfortunate here, since class D is purely analog with unlimited resolution. Still, you can take equivalent quality pictures using medium frame size film camera for much less money than digital, but in case of 35mm frame film camera has no chance. Digital cameras have better resolution, lower noise, bigger dynamic range and much higher sensitivity (ISO) not to mention overall convenience. http://petapixel.com/2015/05/26/film-vs-digital-a-comparison-of-the-advantages-and-disadvantages/ |
The premise that class d amps haven't "arrived" is flawed. Many people love them, in fact many have dumped their Pass, Bryston, ARC, etc. amps in favor of class d. All one needs to do is read through the various Hypex class d threads all over the internet to see this. It isn't a question of if, or even when, class d will take its place at the table, it has already been accomplished. The objective performance of class d amps is now significantly better than most ss and surely all tube amps. Of course there will be those with vested interests who will poo-poo class d, and there are those who prefer the distortion profile of tube amps. Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference and subjective tastes, and as has been demonstrated in the market place, class d has shown it has not only arrived, but displacing traditional ss and tube amps everywhere one looks... |
- 42 posts total