Suggestions for Class D amplifiers with Marantz AV7704 and B&W cdm9nt combo for HT.

@geek101 

 I am not familiar with Apollon.  Have heard of Nord. But know nothing about them. Will check both out.  

@caphill  I admit I don't know as much as others here in A-gon, but as I understand it in the class D space - anemic presentation - is still a byproduct that hasn't been resolved to the same substance and - for lack of a better term - meatiness of  the AB class gear.  As stated - everything is better today even class D. Which makes it all the more difficult for guys like me with limited funds to make a decision that I need to live with for a duration vs changing out gears every few months or years.  And trying to figure out which amp goes with what speakers is a daunting task - albeit - part of the fun of audio. But with the advent of SO many more choices than there were just 15 years ago -- it makes it all the more complex an issue of finding what works and what doesn't.

@erik_squires 

Reliance on the SMEs in A-gon has been very helpful.  So thanks to all who take the time to contribute.

  

@lightfighter2018,

That's what I found with a W4S ST-500mkii. Super clean, authoritative bass, not shrill by any stretch but a lack of meat on the bones. The DAC-2 being used as a pre was probably a bad match for the sound I was after. A tube pre might have sounded better.

Also, Live Dirac room correction focuses images and sharpens the presentation a good deal. This brings out the teeth on every note in a SS pre and class D amp combo. I prefered the older Parasound class A/B. 

@caphill  

lacking body, volume, air, midrange bloom, full mid-bass & bass power and overall musicality in comparison to very high quality analog or class A & AB designs IMO. Class D can usually sound leaner thinner lacking body and volume and somewhat analytical and lacking that lush analog sound and don’t sound liquid and fluid as good class A & AB designs.  

 
Ladking power in the mid-bass/bass is just untrue, they amplify linearly, maybe compared to tube amps. Body, volume, air, and musically are all non-descript terms, stuff like poor channel separation, high noise floor, slow transient response, high distortion, etc. are all more useful. Describing a sound as dry or wet is just nonsense talk, like describing a television’s picture as feminine, it doesn’t mean anything.

lacking body, volume, air, midrange bloom, full mid-bass & bass power and overall musicality in comparison to very high quality analog or class A & AB designs

This is a true thing and most of today's Class D amps will suffer from this lack of bass/midbass and midrange bloom because of their small switching power supplies.  It doesn't matter if the switching power supply can provide 2000 watts of power.  It just will not have the full strong bass/midbass and midrange bloom because of it's small amount of capacitance bank storage.  They just will not be able to compete with large size transformers and large capacitor banks for bloom, power and punch.

That is also why I bring up the ATI Hypex solution.  Because it does use a standard linear power supply with good size transformers and decent capacitance.

In addition, some of these comments were describing older Class D circuits.  The frequency response of these circuits were dictated by the impedance curve of the speaker (where the impedance drops down very low in the bass/midbass area).  Result can be weak bass/midbass and also rolled-off highs.