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

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.

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.

I have had the opportunity of trying in my own system a late pre-production of the brand new Merrill Element 118 monos... All amps of the new Oganessom series have class D output stage circuits totally designed in house by Merril... They employ Gallium nitrite transistors switching in the Mhz range.


In spite of the units that I demoed being pre-production, and not yet sporting all the circuit details of the very final implementation, the tone of the monos was absolutely delectable for all parameters I an think of.... From delicacy and extension of treble, to the complexity of the midrange, to the depth and tunefulness of the bass... And let us not forget a quite phenomenal authority, staging and imaging.


Element 118 were immersive and mesmerizing, with a complex resolution and musical tonality  that I have experienced only in rare cases. The element 118  prototypes seemed to rank with flagship devices from some of my favorite brands, such as amplifiers from Soloution, the ARC reference series, and my own Rowland M925 monos.


On the other hand, if what you seek is a classic warm tube sound, none of the above will do.... It is not a matter of such designs as the Merrill Oganessom series, Rowland M925 and Daemon, or even the class A/B Soulution amps, or even the reference seiries ARC tube amps. "not being there" yet for a reason or another....


Rather, the designers of any of these devices are not aiming at the slightly euphonic warmth of the classic tube sound.


While general goals at Rowland, ARC, and Soulution include, amongst other parameters, harmonic complexity and minimization of intermodulative distortions in the treble, they aim to maintain an even treatment of harmonics across the spectrum, without preferencial emphasis of any particular region of the audible band. But designers achieve their flagship goals with very different sophisticated strategies, which employ Tubes at ARC, class A/B output stages with Soulution, NCore NC1200 or Pascal X-Pro2 in Rowland, and completely custom design of class D output stage on the Merrill Oganessom series.


Bottomline... Do not get fixated on topologies, and keep an open mind. Keep auditioning to amps of different tonality, designs, and vintage... You never know what might capture your heart *Grins!*

 

Remember that the worst enemy of audiophiles, and humans in general, is what is sometimes called the false induction step... That is judging an entire class of complex objects based on characteristics of some small number of samples. Even less reliable a technique when the samples are out of date or otherwise obsolete.


 

Saluti, G.


helomech - 

So you heard Parasound and Devialet amps on Magnepans and did not like the Devialet. 

That is 1 single sample of a specific Class D amplifier you did not like. Is that correct? 

Erik 
It’s closing in on sixteen years since Stereophile first stirred the pot when they gave the $1700. PS Audio HCA-2 their Solid State A list recommendation.

And the beat goes on...