Class D is just Dandy!

I've come to a Class D amp not through any intentional act, but purely though preference for the sound quality. I had tube gear for years, then moved to Naim for about 10 years. I was going to upgrade along the Naim chain until I heard Devialet. I bought a D120 about two years ago, then upgraded to a D220 Pro in December. I've never had better sound in life. Musical and accurate and emotional. 

There aren't that many absolutes in the audio world. You can do SS or Tubes well or badly, and there are a lot of approaches to class D amps as well. But I would not go back to Naim or McIntosh for anything. And nobody who hears my system comments that it sounds metallic or artificial. Source quality matters, cables matter, power quality matters, and of course, we all have our own preferences in musical reproduction, But those who dismiss class D out of hand probably haven't heard a good system. Or else they just like the sound of tubes and their particular sonic signature. 

Blang 11

I think you are going to be very pleased with the Bel Canto Ref 600M monos. I just got my new pair installed a couple days ago, also replacing an ARC Class D stereo amp, model 150.2. The Bel Cantos already sound great, though I expect they will provide even more improvement with more break in.

My own theory is that ARC discontinued it’s Class D amps (and thereby all SS amps) to reduce and clarify product lines now that it is under common ownership with MacIntosh--ARC to concentrate on tube gear and Mac to do the big line of SS amps.

erik_squires

That has been my experience as well...

The "Class D Audio" SDS-470C is... very, very close to the Parasound Halo amps.  

The area in which the Halo amps might be a wee bit better (maybe) is in the clarity, and crispness of the bass (maybe).  

A well designed Class D amp will bring you in and draw you closer to your music. You also will hear deeper into your music and the details you never knew existed before suddenly appear as if previously you've been listening  in a fog bank. My analogy/ the difference would be like looking through a dirty pane of glass as opposed to a sparkling clean one. I own two Class D amps and love them!

phd
A well designed Class D amp will bring you in and draw you closer to your music. You also will hear deeper into your music and the details you never knew existed before suddenly appear as if previously you’ve been listening in a fog bank. My analogy/ the difference would be like looking through a dirty pane of glass as opposed to a sparkling clean one. I own two Class D amps and love them!

Odd the opposite of what was heard from the $50K Mark Levinson No.53 Class-D monoblocks

Stereophile's Michael Fremer listens to the ML No 53’s.
"Through the No.53s Cassidy’s voice was pinpoint sharp but the reverb, instead of being airy and ethereal, sounded like a hard haze that obscured detail at low levels and became fatiguing at higher ones.
As seems to be the case with switching amps, no matter how carefully designed, the higher in frequency the music goes, the more problems there are. That also holds true the more you turn up the volume. Generally speaking, the louder I played the No.53s, the more pronounced the haze. The more high-frequency content in the music—women’s voices, cymbals, reverberant backdrops—the more the haze intruded on and obscured the images, forcing me to turn down the volume."

Cheers George