The Future of Audio Amplification

Kosst. You have repeated your stand about specifications on distortion, overshoot of square waves, etc,etc. But you have eluded the simple question many of us have asked you, "have you listened at length, (weeks, months) to any viable Class D amp in your own system. I have no problem with class D not being your cup of tea, just you and other nay sayers believing it is junk and should be dismissed. To many well trained ears here have had wonderful experiences with class D, myself included.
Tim

I don’t recall the amp model, but Pass installed a pot on the front of the thing to dial in the distortion character ranging from a few hundredths % positive phase second harmonic to a few hundredths negative phase.

Pass makes the opposite argument you are making. Your argument is: I can see it has more distortion so it’s bad.

Pass’ arguments are that MORE distortion is favorable.

Further, he’s adding distortion which is in the audible frequency spectrum. Your claims Class-D switching noise (i.e. distortion) are in the RF frequency range.

So, we are back to : Is switching distortion from Class D amps audible or meaningful? In fact, none of the claims of sonic inferiority here even point to that. The only counter points I hear are of sterile sounding, or lacking dimension or engagement. Which of these problems do you think come from switching noise and distortion?

George insists that high speed is where it's at, based on no particular evidence. I mean, what exactly is high speed? What is too low? What is high enough? You have to buy into the idea that you have an audible problem to begin with.


Best,
E

For years I poo poo’d Class D in the same fashion as Kosst has here. But, because of curiosity and a sense that a company I trust, PS Audio, wouldn’t be spouting off about how good these amps are if it couldn’t be backed up, I decided to try a pair of their class D monoblocks.

They sound better than ANY of the MANY of non-Class D amps I have owned in the past, not only to my ears, but to several of my audio buds who have now listened and who are both tubed and solid state (non-Class D) amp owners. They ALL agree that my system sounds significantly better than before with these amps.

I took a chance and am now convinced that the technology has arrived at level consistent, and exceeding, the sonic perfomance of ANYTHING out there.

Also, this nonsense about caps burning up early due to the switching technology is a lame attempt to scare people in an era where fear reigns supreme. Good electrolytics last a long time. Enough of this fear mongering.

Horseless carriages were deeply despised and 'destined for failure' when they started out too. Any car owners out there?

I said in a post that I could not hear switching distortion in my amp and believed that most, if not all, of said switching distortion wasn't audible. Ralph Karsten said to me, and I quote:

"Speak for yourself, Kemo Sabi"

Also, this nonsense about caps burning up early due to the switching technology is a lame attempt to scare people in an era where fear reigns supreme. Good electrolytics last a long time. Enough of this fear mongering.

In the amps or speakers?

I think there's been a great deal of improvements in cap technology over the last 20-30 years. Low inductance, and low ESR electrolytics are a lot more common.