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The Truth about Modern Class D

All my amps right now are Class D. ICEpower in the living room, and NAD D 3020 in the bedroom.

I’ve had several audiophiles come to my home and not one has ever said "Oh, that sounds like Class D."

Having said this, if I could afford them AND had the room, I’d be tempted to switch for a pair of Ayre monoblocks or Conrad Johnson Premiere 12s and very little else.

I’m not religious about Class D. They sound great for me, low power, easy to hide, but if a lot of cash and the need to upgrade ever hits me, I could be persuaded.

The point: Good modern Class D amps just sound like really good amplifiers, with the usual speaker/source matching issues.

You don’t have to go that route, but it’s time we shrugged off the myths and descriptions of Class D that come right out of the 1980’s.
erik_squires
erik_squires OP
16,849 posts
 
There are certain things I cannot argue with. Personal choice for specific amplifiers and speakers. That’s fine.

My argument was not "you should like Class D more than your favorite" but that Class D as a whole is just as good as capable and musical as any other solid state amps, with a lot of the same pitfalls. The technology has in fact arrived for good, and we are better for it. 


helomech
1,838 posts
 

We better put up the question again to what this answer above relates to, which is:
" Is Class D competitive with linear designs in sound quality, and if not, will it ever be?"

I believe it may be someday but it isn't yet to my ears. I've heard the Parasound Halo Integrated take the Devialet Pro monoblocks to school. The new NAD N-Core based amps sound no better than class D of 15 years ago: cold, analytical and fatiguing. Same for the hybrids I've heard. I'll continue to give new designs a chance, but I've yet to encounter one that sounds as smooth/listenable as a halfway decent class AB amp. I think some audiophiles just don't hear the digital-like character that most, if not all of them exhibit.
erik_squires OP
16,849 posts
 
@helomech I’ve had Parasound Halo amps. I traded them for ICEpower amps which in my environment sounded equivalent.

Can you tell us about the speakers you evaluated with when you say the Parasound took the Devialet to school?

PS - I like Parasound a great deal. This is not about trashing them.
ricevs
1,543 posts
 

Unless you have heard the very latest and best class D amps then you have only heard history.

The brand new Merrill amps have way more musical and detailed sound than the previous Hypex Ncore based amps. You can read some comments on their site and more info will be here shortly.

The brand new Nuprime monos are suppose to be killer.

My about to be released $1000 and $1900 tweaked ICEege amps are seriously great sounding.

My own reference amp for the past 5 years is a class A amp designed by myself. It is dual mono and super, super pure and tweak in all ways....only two fets and two resistors in series with the signal per phase. Well, the ICEedge prototype is overall better.....better in most every way.....and I have three more things to try on the proto amp. I don’t want to go back to my class A amp.

Here is something to ponder......All connectors suck....and I mean big time! I have hardwired my amps to my x-over and speaker drivers for years but only in the last year did I remove the connectors on my interconnects. I had no idea how bad they were. I will never have any connectors (except AC) in my system again. If you have connectors on a warm or colored system then the system still might sound musical. However, having connectors on a pure "straight wire" system will bring agony to the listener. Connectors sound like bad class d or digital....really....grainy, compressed, Aharmonic, rolled off......just bad. My new amps will have my binding post bypass system where the binding post is used only as a clamp, that clamps your speaker wires (hopefully without connectors) directly to the wires coming out of the amp. I will also have optional hardwired interconnects on my amps and also have optional hardwired short pigtails hanging outside the amp that you can solder your own wires to. All these things have never been offered on any amp before (except for my previous amps that had my binding post bypass system).

This is just the beginning.

I predict that in 2-3 years Class D will be so close to pure straight wire that all other amps will then be history except for those addicted to coloration. Class D will also become even more efficient and smaller and cheaper so we will all win on all counts. The class D revolution has started.

helomech
1,838 posts
 
Can you tell us about the speakers you evaluated with when you say the Parasound took the Devialet to school?
Magnepan 1.7is - so it didn't even take very high performance speakers to do so.
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