Digital Amplifier Questions

Yep... Worth pointing out that my old Rowland M7 monos, which were almost class A amps, reached best performance after one week (yes, that is 7 days) of operation... Tried that one fine Christmas break... The creatures sucked up 720W per side for some three weeks... By the end of the first week they did sound really golden... When wifie received the AC bill she almost threw me out of the house.

May Gaia bless class D... Rowland M925 monos are on 24/7, and I never heard one peep of complaint from Mrs. Better Half.

G.

Guidocorona,
Have you had any experience with the Peachtree 220? If not, maybe you could pull up the specs and let me know what you think?

Mapman, Guidocorona, Timlub and Xti, thank you all for your helpful and informative posts! I appreciate it and hopefully others will benefit from this also.

Ps, Mapman, I researched Bel Canto last night and a pair of the Ref500m monoblocks and a Dac 3.7 or Dac 2.7 looks like that be an awesome system. You've got me interested in Bel Canto now :)
There's also a pair of Ohm Walsh 4's for sale local to me; if I had the $ for them I'd go listen to them.

If you look at second hand OHMS, be sure to identify what version/generation drivers on them. They all tend to look similar on teh outside but each version will sound differnet with the most current ones being the most refined. Mine are series 3 which is one generation old now (current sereis are designated X000) and superceded original X series (including Walsh 4's) and mkII series. Also custom mods to all of those have been done over the years. So unfortunately it can be very difficult to know for sure sometimes unless the source is trusted or maybe John Strohbeen at OHM can help confirm.

Also with Bel Canto, newer ref1000m and ref500m include teh BC custom power board internally as well as custom input board with higher input impedance to work better with tube preamps. These make a difference and go for a premium accordingly. PRior ref1000 and ref500 models were basically stock Icepower modules in a nice box and can be had for much less accordingly. Also I believe 500m uses a newer version of Icepower than 1000m last time I checked about a year ago FWIW.

My experience has taught me that there is a vast difference in the approach that some manufacturers have taken with Class D technology versus others. An example would be Rotel vs Jeff Roland. Albeit, that we are talking about two companies targeting different market segments, but spending time with each has caused me to love one and despise the other. I'll let you guess which is which!

And yes, it loves to be kept on all the time.