11-28-15: Kijanki
My Rowland 102 sounded the best after about 400 hours. Class D amps are very revealing and often don't work well with some "bright" components. [...]
The exposure goes both ways; what's at the end of the signal chain (i.e.: speakers) can also be ruthlessly revealing as well as, conversely, reveal their limitations. When people describe SET's as possessing "lush, warm [i.e.: meant as warmer than strictly "neutral"] midrange" and generally "loose bass," it could be descriptive of speakers lacking mids resolution/speed and of (bass-)ported designs with poor damping and overhang. Connect well-implemented horn speakers instead (themselves far more revealing than most direct radiating designs) with non-ported bass of higher damping and the "math" can suddenly reverse into match-bliss: here the mids are no longer warmish warm, but attain a "bloom" and naturalness that's ultimately freeing of any containment resembling "hifi" in the usual sense, and a bass enriched with an organic imprinting more about texture, immersion and cohesion (traits of true horn bass as well) than oomph, attention-seeking and depth.
If one were to insert a Class-D amp here instead (many iterations though they are), and the sound suddenly became slightly bleached, bass-thin and lacking fullness (that's a guess), my take would be to assess the amp lacking harmonic richness and being over-damped in this particular setup rather than aiming the search light towards other components - not least the speakers. Though speakers (and their acoustic environment) are by far the most coloring and limiting factors, their potential to put into perspective on what to use earlier in the chain is significant.
