Class D Technology
"If it weren’t for efficiency & power, would there be any reason to own a Class D amp? Do they beat Class A in any other categories that count for sound quality?"That is the debate, my answer is no, not yet, (except in the bass & upper bass). And it’s not because of the power, but more the damping factor (low impedance output) which some say is aided by of gobs of feedback. Cheers George |
If it weren't for efficiency & power, would there be any reason to own a Class D amp? Do they beat Class A in any other categories that count for sound " Let me try to respond to the question posed by the OP in the crispiest way I can: 1. I am deeply dissatisfied with at least 90% of amps on the market that I had the fortune, or the misfortune, to audition, regardless of class of operation. 2. I have selected my class D amps because I fell in love with their total audible performance, for every parameter.
4. I found less than a handful of amps that enthrolled me as much, or almost as much... The leading contender was made by Solution... Enchanting class A/B amp, which I would put more or less at par with the classs D Rowland M925 As for which class is inherently audibly superior .... It is an absurd question, which has no meaningful answer. On the other hand, I grant you that when class D misses the musicality mark, either because the amp is not properly broken in, or because of inherent design flaws/limitations more common on older designs, it has the ability of outschreetching and outtubbing most everything on the market... The most unendurable listening experience for me was in fact that of a lower cost class D amp... Closely followed by that of an uber-stratospheric SS class A/B system... Conversely, even the worse uber-expensive tubed amp I heard, was only marginally worse than totally uninspiring.
G. . |
Don’t listen to the negative propaganda especially from just one or two who repeat the same thing over and over. Just try them for yourselves if interested and see. Myself, I’ve had way less trouble finding top notch sounding Class D amps than others. Will probably never go back to anything else. If I had unlimited budget and/or went only with very easy load speakers, perhaps it might be easier to find other amps to match overall performance and sound quality I have experienced with Class D. But even so I have no reason to ever go back to anything else. My Class D amps do it all as well or better than anything else I have heard in recent years. If I were to seek a particular unique flavor of sound only available with a tube amp, maybe. A good Class D amp is like a high performance car engine. it makes the entire experience a lot more effortless and enjoyable. Those who discount or ignore the advantages inherent in newer more efficient and overall higher performance Class D technology are doing others a disservice. I know I’m glad I went with my gut which told me to actually see what this popular and innovative newer technology is actually capable of before resorting to older more familiar solutions that never seemed able to fit the bill for me 100%. |
savdllc (can’t "at" you for some reason) you wrote: What I did state is that Class D designs tend to sacrifice fidelity in favor of efficiency, which is true in most cases. This is the bias I was trying to answer, my apologies I did not connect my statements more clearly to your writing. I am unable to support this statement based on any evidence at all. I do believe that Class D is in a much wider quality range of products than Class A. By this I mean from cheap portable music players to high end. Class D is, numerically, overwhelmingly dominant and across every market segment, while the ONLY place in audio I know of with Class A being produced today is high end, often mono-blocks. (There’s probably some Bugatti with Class A amps, but lets get real) This may lead us to make unfair apples to oranges comparisons which don’t actually tell us much about the overall potential of Class D. At the high end, I see no sacrifices being made for Class D except to my carbon footprint. I DO hear differences in amplifiers. However to hear those differences and say "OH, well Class D is inferior, so the A/B amp must be better sounding" is an snobby prejudice. There are even some strong benefits, as some have very high damping factors (output impedance) and therefore more consistent performance across speakers. I think that the subjectivity of the "high-end" can be quite trendy, or go pretty far from neutrality. If that keeps a Class D from reaching top-tier status, then it's just a matter of time before a vendor creates the right input buffer for you. Again, to everyone, please please buy what you like to hear, but let’s not use cost as our golden calf of determining what’s best. Best, Erik |
mapman Those who discount or ignore the advantages inherent in newer more efficient and overall higher performance Class D technology are doing others a disservice.Don't be silly. Those who exercise their personal preferences here do a disservice to no one - except, perhaps, themselves. No one here owes anyone else anything. |
