Class D is just Dandy!


I thought it was time we had a pro- Class D thread. There's plenty of threads about comparisons, or detractors of Class D.

That's fine, you don't have to like Class D amps, and if you don't please go participate on one of those threads.

For those of us who are very happy and excited about having musical, capable amps that we can afford to keep on 24/7 and don't require large spaces to put them in, this thread is for you.

Please share your experiences with class D amps!
erik_squires

     Very nice to see almarg and atmasphere team-up, step up and use their knowledge/experience to solve islandmandan's noise problem. Nice job guys!

     What I've consistently noticed from listening to good class D amps in my system, from my initial Class D Audio SDS-440-CS stereo amp to my Emerald Physics 100.2 to my most recently purchased D-Sonic M-600 mono-block amps, is their exceptional quietness;  music seems to emerge with more impact due to the dead quiet background.
     I believe this silent quality is also a primary contributor to the other obvious characteristic of good class D amps: a very detailed presentation..

      I'm almost certain these class D attributes will now be very evident to  islandman  now that his amps are operating in their typically silent manner.

Enjoy,
 Tim
My goal was a little desktop integrated or pre/amp combo.

After hemming and hawing and fretting I purchased an NAD D 3020. My local dealer had one $100 off.

I ruled out all of the Parasound Z series just because they are too big. at 9" wide they wouldn't fit on top of a speaker, like I need.

Plenty of digital and a couple of analog inputs make the input selection pretty good. There is also a bass boost which is perfect for my little desktop speakers.

So far so good. The one negative is really the volume display is hokey as hell, and it takes a lot of turns to adjust it.

The display has a series of numbers: -20, 40, -60, -80 and -100. As you turn the volume down the numbers dim, or go off. The physically larger sibling the 7050 has a graphical display with direct volume readings in dB. It was only a little more expensive, but seemed to lack analog inputs and was twice the physical size.

They call this a hybrid digital, but I could not find much information on what makes it a hybrid.

My only source right now is the PC, via analog, but I'm always careful to get motherboards with S/PDIF outputs so I'll try that eventually.


Oversimplifying, 'Hybrid' means that the digital source is upsampled to the scan frequency of the amp.