Digital amp beat them all? Audio Physic Strada .


The german magazine Stereoplay has(in its June issue) a review of the new Audio Physic Strada monoblocks.
Like most german audio magazines this has also a preferance for ranking products in a hierarcic manner.
Interestinly, the new monoblocks from Audio Physic gets
60 point (on a scale that end with 63 points), while the
mag´s former reference Krell FPB 650 M gets 59 p.
For your knowledge;Electrocompaniet Nemo gets 58 p, the same as Pass X-350.
Althought the fact that I am sceptical about ranking systems
in Audio,I find it remarkable that a digital amp allready
can compete with some of (what is regarded) as "top-flight"
amps!
The Strada monoblocks has a switched powersupply and some
innovative curcuitry,e.g. it seems to be handling signals
of low amplitude in analog way, and switches over to digital mode for higher amplitudes in some form of bridge
output section. Sorry, my understanding of technical german
isn´t splendid.
They deliver 255 W/each in 8 Ohms, and costs about 15000 Euro a pair.
What do you think? Are digital amps taking over the scene
in the years to come, or will there be a "resistance movement" corresponding to that of CD-anlog?
dinos
8Hz is away from the cutoff ?? What cutoff is that ? The only cutoff I am aware of is at around 20kHz for the anti-aliasing filters. I'm not aware of any low frequency rolloff in the redbook standard. I'm getting tired of these half-truths. By all means describe what you hear, but leave technical explanations out unless you really know what you're talking about.
I'm not talking of 8Hz as the freequency reproduced on the same level as all 20Hz...20KHz audiable freequencies. I'm talking of 8Hz harmonical components of an audiable freequencies that can go upto 52KHz. They're signifying the tembre of a particular voice and instrument. Making the sound of tum or drum 3d and more real(for a small example). Analogue playback starts from mechanical transfer that has no limit to the freequencies whatsoever.
Whenever it's 8Hz or 32kHz it's all there in the stylus in the first place...
Shortly saying we've got two ways to create imaging: one way is to get as full range as possible capturing all the sub and over-harmonics or with current digital limitations we should create a digital immulator of 3D space by micro-phase shift(s) of a different channels according to the room dimensions or whatsoever(when you will get a chance to deal with TACT you'll know better).
The first analogue way creates a natural(or at least as closed to) and the other way creates pseudo-imaging.
I've clearly stated what I've heard from the same source with different setups before that the placement of instrument/musicians was different but although more clear in the sound stage. Thus from that I'm making my conclusion here. I've actually expected TACT to do some magic, but was dissapointed for the price you'll have to spend for that unit vs. more valuable analoge options.
Once again to say I've "factored" it out leaving 1 in numerator and analogue in denumerator.
Actually I was being kind of mean. The specifications are from the Yamaha RX-V2200 A/V Receiver.

I hoped to make a point that specifications are pretty much meaningless, we must all take the time to listen with our ears and our hearts and quit being influenced by the data.
I agree to that Albert, most measurments (on amps)doesn´t tell us much about how the amp actually sounds.Some well- reviewed amps that I have read about recently, have rather high figures of intermodulation distortion.Probably, the usual,static measurments miss important information of an amps behavior under more realistic, transient signal conditions.But some measurments, e.g. an amps delivery of power into a reactive load, tells us somthing about the amps ability to drive real world loads, i.e. speakers.
Stereoplay has an interesting hypotesis that valve amps and digital amps have one thing in common, namely that they are less prone to be affected by back-EMF sent (back) from the speakers to the
amp(s).And perhapes they can be made,so that they pollute
the mains less than conventional amps?

If digital amps can compete in the High-end sector, only time will tell.But I find a big advantage in their superior efficiency! That is less disturbing to the environment,and
at the same time save us from some heat! (I have to admit,
that I now use a big class A amp.)My own belief, is that
we will see digital amps taking over the scene sooner that
many of us expected.Like all predictions, it can be wrong.