High End Amp Price Collapse musings

blackfly

I did read your post before responding.  You said Class D "has a longs ways to go..." (without mentioning any Class D amps that you have listened to).  I gave my opinion that it doesn't have a long way to go and in previous posts compared it to some high end amplifiers I've owned, including a Class A ATI amplifier that cost over $2000.00, 20 years ago.  

You also said "go out and directly compare it to a Luxman M 800, or Accuphase A 200. No Dice."  That statement is illogical and even a little arrogant since you are judging the Luxman and the Accuphase against the NAD without listening to the NAD.  You make blanket statements as to why Class A has to be the best and D Class basically sucks.  From your bold statements, I'm sure an ATI without it's fancy chassis and lacking an inflated price tag would never be welcome in your home.

Time to chime with my direct a/b comparo
BAT VK600SE vs Red Dragon S500
Everything else the same, just swapping leads between the bat and the red dragon.

Hate to say it but it looks like the 120lb space heater is going to be looking for a new home.

I honestly thought the Red Dragon beat the BAT out on soundstage, noise floor and vocals.
The BAT may have aced it on low bass, not too surprising.
All in all the class d just sounded plain "nice" for want of a better word, no fatigue or lack of warmth, at least not to my ears, in my system with my music

Not so deep into the future we may have trouble finding brand new cheap Class AB power amplifiers.  If anything, it might be wise to buy one now if that's what you might want down the road.  Of course, a used Class AB might be available <$1000 but will the company/service manuals still be around and how soon will it need recapping and other service?

Hi, I think that however good Class D becomes, it will always sound different than Class A, and a significant enough number of audiophiles will consider them worth their weight that the market for used class A / AB amps will not take a nose dive anytime soon.

As for the discussion regarding vinyl, I ditched mine a long ago in favor of CDs. I don’t miss the vinyl, though I can relate to the elegance of an all analog path. After all, all speakers are analog, as they must be, since our ears are.

As I said I ditched my records a long time ago. I still have my 1,000 or so CDs, but I don’t listen to them anymore. Instead I listen to FLAC files (I subscribe to TIDAL) for the following reasons:

1). Economic: I get access to all of my CD’s (or near enough as makes no matter) plus anything else I want to try on for size. The $20/month I pay to tidal is nothing. There was a time I spent 20 times that amount or more on CDs.

Plus I don’t need to spend a lot of money on playback devices. Vinyl enthusiasts spend thousands on turntables and cartridges. I see record cleaners costing more than $1,000!!!

2) Convenience Tidal stores my music for me (though I do store my favorite albums on my phone so I can listen to them when I don’t have a high speed internet connection)

3) Longevity: My FLAC files will never wear out, get scratched, or otherwise degrade. You can’t even say that for CD’s though they are less susceptible to wear and somewhat more forgiving of minor damage than vinyl.

4) Portability. I can take all my music with me wherever I go. If I don’t have an acceptable setup available for playing through loudspeakers, I can connect my Oppo headphones to my phone (an LG V20 which sports a decent DAC).

Having said all that, I am in the market for a new amp and am leaning toward class AB tubes because I think my Magnepan 1.7s will respond well to that configuration. Though I am intrigued by the Rogue hybrid (tube pre-amp section; Class D amplifier section), I am going to be looking for a used all tube solution (maybe Audio Research).

One more aside: According to my understanding, calling class D amps digital is a bit of a misnomer. They are no more digital than your microwave (which has some ’digitalness’ to it since it has only two modes: on and off). Like a microwave a Class D is either on or off as opposed to a Class A/B which is always on. The difference between a class D amp and a microwave is that a class D amp switches on and off so fast that it "looks" to your speaker like a varying continuous signal.

I have enjoyed this thread, and hope my post is not too long-winded. Thanks all.

Like computers Class D amps are still evolving. A guys walks into a computer store for a possible purchase. He finally tells the clerk that he has decided to wait till computers improve in the near future. The clerk responds, then you will never own one because they are constantly improving.