Which Class D Amplifier? PS Audio, Ghent, Nord, Merrill or other???


I’m looking for a new amp & want Class D.

I’ve seen various brands mentioned, such as PS Audio, Ghent, Nord, Merrel to name a few, but I’ve not heard any of them.

Which company is producing the best sounding Class D?
Which models should I be looking to demo?


Thanks



singintheblues
Heatsinks are required, even for Gan devices switching at lower speeds, regardless of what EPC allegedly said.
This is not correct.

You can buy your own EPC GaN boards from Digikey, and yes they operate with no heatsink.
Because EPC’s Steve Colino said to me, (and I posted up his email), they are at 600khz switching speed, you can increase that to 1 or 1.5mhz as Steve said, but you will have to use a heatsink on them.

https://www.digikey.com/products/en?%20WT.z_cid=sp_917_0110_buynow&site=us&lang=en&mpart...






http://www.ti.com/power-management/gallium-nitride/overview.html 

Here we go hopefully, one of the majors have got the rights to make it, watch Class-D take off now, and finally compete with the best of Linear amps in the mids and highs and beat it in the bass as it always did.

Cheers George
As fate would have it, one of my 3 Class D amps, the inexpensive $70 one (with Bluetooth) by Fosi Audio:

https://fosiaudio.com/collections/bluetooth-amplifier/products/bt10a-bluetooth-4-0-stereo-audio-ampl...

Uses this TI Class D chip that I was unfamiliar with prior:

http://www.ti.com/product/TPA3116D2

If when the TI GaN technology reaches this product, assuming it has not already (don’t know), I hope the price does not jump too much.

It sounds very good! Much better than I could have hoped for the cost, though I am only using it with a pair of old Boston A40s in a lesser used 2-channel AV system currently. Also I do not hear the issues George claims even at this modest cost. Enjoying it thoroughly, though much different sounding than the classic old NAD 7020 it replaced. More like my other two much pricier Class D amps.

It got a near perfect 5 star average rating with 100s of reviewers on Amazon offering up similar praise. I guess they did not hear any problematic artifacts either.



You can buy your own EPC GaN boards from Digikey, and yes they operate with no heatsink.
Because EPC’s Steve Colino said to me, (and I posted up his email), they are at 600khz switching speed, you can increase that to 1 or 1.5mhz as Steve said, but you will have to use a heatsink on them.
@georgehifi
Yes, the board itself is the heatsink, but is an evaluation board. If you ran this thing under heavy conditions, it would fail unless cooled by a fan or the output devices were mounted on a proper heatsink.
Heatsinks are required, even for Gan devices switching at lower speeds
If you ran this thing under heavy conditions, it would fail
And yes Gan devices have their own heat pad underneath which is sweated to the ground plane of the PCB. But that will be in every case that they are used in, your not going to twist it any other way.!!!! https://ibb.co/jTWd9nx

I tend to believe the manufacture of the board, EPC and it’s designer Steve Colino, who stated only heatsinking is required on these GaN devices if the switching frequency is raised. Not by what you say.

And from Merrill Audio who use the higher switching speed
" Internally the Element 118 Power Amplifier Monoblock PCB boards are manufactured to the highest excellence available and further engineered for sustaining a most stable temperature distribution. Using 8 pounds of pure copper per monoblock, the highly refined heat distribution system maintains a steady temperature environment on the PCB boards, a condition absolutely essential for linear operation."