The Truth about Modern Class D

For those like myself who are on very limited retirement budgets, I highly recommend the Audio Alchemy amps and dac/pre. Both were reviewed in TAS back in March 2016

If you are interested in them search for Elac

I agree with most here that you can no longer define Class D as a particular "sound" and that the sound quality varies tremendously depending on module selection and implementation. I have Thiel 2.4s and Aesthetix preamps with a Direcstream. An unusually large proportion of Thiel owners (the vintage speakers not the ’new’ Thiel) ended up with Bel Canto Ref 1000 Mk II mono blocks as their amplifiers of choice. For a brief period I used an even older version of the Bel Canto amps: the 300M monblocks. More recently I tried the Bel Canto Ref 600s expecting great things but I was REALLY disappointed. On those amps I heard a recessed upper midrange and slightly rolled off highs. I also tried a pair of Red Dragon monos based on the recent ice power modules as well as one of their stereo amps based on the Pascal modules. Those units didn’t sound bad necessarily, but were in my system rather one dimensional. I eventually ended up trying non-class D amps including the Bryston cubed series and the Pass Labs products and ended up with Pass Labs which tick just about all the boxes for me. In my system the Pass Labs .8 series tonal balance is a little on the warm side but the detail and depth and general musicality of those products is difficult to match. I wouldn’t care if my Pass Labs amp was Class D, Class A, or Class QXZ, I would still love love love what they do.

@guidocorona 

"Thank you so much Merrill!" - Most Welcome. 

"Indeed I had suggested a few small things... I believe that you actually implement my recommendation to use 20A IEC to maximize stability of connection with heavy power cords.... Well, at least now, if anyone complains about 20A inlets, you can refer their  lamentations all to me *Grins!*"   - You are rather modest. You have more other subtle contributions which I have valued over the years.

"BTW, have you published pricing for Element 116 and 114?"  Soon to be priced. The ELEMENT 116 will be announced shortly. It will be priced at $22k. This is mean to be the replacement of the VERITAS Monoblocks, although as you heard, a very significant upgrade. 

The ELEMENT 114 will be a stereo version to keep the price down and give those with space constraints what they want. The price will be announced Q4 of this year.

 

Let me begin by saying I am by no means an "expert" on class D power amps, but here are my impressions.

I first auditioned a class D amp around 10 years ago, driving a pair of larger, floor standing B&W speakers, and thought the result was somewhat harsh for acoustic music, but "exciting" for rock and roll.

Fast forward to last Fall and I had the pleasure of auditioning a Mytek Brooklyn amp driving a pair of bookshelf sized KEFs and thought the result was very good!  I also auditioned one of the PS Audio Stellar DAC/amp combinations and that also didn't have that harsh sound of the class D amps of yesteryear.  In both cases, these amps sounded "fast" and "clean".  One thing both owners said to me was that it took much longer than normal for these amps to break in and sound their best.

If I were in the market for a new amplifier, I'd give class D some serious consideration.