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  3. 1404873838

The End Of Big Iron?

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Once upon a time you could buy a 1,000 wpc, a 900 wpc and a 750 wpc monoblock from Krell. You could buy a 1,000 wpc monoblock from Pass Labs. Now, 575 wpc is the biggest you can get from Krell and 600 wpc is the biggest you can get from Pass Labs. The muscle of flagship amps in those mfgs has been virtually halved. I mean, was 1,000 wpc, 900 wpc, or a 750 wpc amplifier ever necessary? If they were, why are they no longer necessary? What has changed in audio or speaker technology to cause the dwindling of 'muscle' amps?
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128x128mitch4t
dave_72
1,399 posts
 
I had a Class D amp. I didn't care for it and it ran out of gas early and overheated. To be fair, it was a mass produced Onkyo, and it's probably not the ultimate in Class D design. Right now, I have an A/B amp; the sound is good, but not phenomenal. It is a bit restricted dynamically. It doesn't breathe like a great Class A amp will. But it doesn't really run out of gas and overheat like the Onkyo did. Anyway, those are my thoughts at the moment on Class D and amps in general.
macrojack
1,303 posts
 
I think there was an escalating contest among "big iron" manufacturers of the day. Consumers tend to latch onto categorical assets, real or otherwise, and when makers get that scent they run with it. In the case of the amps in question, momentum carried them well beyond anything sane or useful before common sense among consumers signaled a cease and desist to Krell and their competitors.

As an aside, does anyone else think that Krell looked like what the army would create if they were designing amplifiers.
p59teitel
314 posts
 
Maybe Krell and Pass gave up the Wattage Wars when this fella came along:

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/1011/boulder_3050_monoblocks.htm
roxy54's avatar
roxy54
8,048 posts
 
If "big iron" has gone out of fashion, it seems that McIntosh and Musical Fidelity haven't heard about it.
bcgator's avatar
bcgator
355 posts
 
@Mapman, it's interesting that you mention not going back from Class D, including to tube amps.

In addition to the Peachtree Grand, I have an ARC VSi55 that I run in the winter when the heat isn't an issue here in AZ, and I swap them out between my two rooms just for fun. I consider the ARC to be a nice amp, nice sound, nothing to sneeze at. And we've done just casual A/B tests between the Peachtree and the ARC, and at measured equal sound levels I honestly can't tell them apart. They sound equally enjoyable, except that the Peachtree can play much louder effortlessly. Which sort of highlights how far Class D has come...you get tons of power, in a nice footprint, low weight, without all the heat, and at least in my case it just happens to sound as sweet and balanced as my Audio Research tube amp.
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