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

Just get the GaN Development board or eGaNAMP 2.1 Evaluation Kit Stereo Evaluation board already made up, with everything inputs outputs, give it +/- 32v power and put it in a box. I believe Digikey has them, and many others.

https://epc-co.com/epc/Portals/0/epc/documents/thirdparty/EAS_eGaN_2.0-Channel_EvalKit-010116.pdf


Cheers George

Okay, thanks.

Getting back to singintheblues original question:

"Which Class D Amplifier? PS Audio, Ghent, Nord, Merrill or other???
Which company is producing the best sounding Class D?
Which models should I be looking to demo?"

singintheblues,

Since you never listed your budget and stated you’d like to demo the best current class D amp, I’m assuming that means price is of no concern to you.
If this is the case, I would suggest you demo the new Merrill Element 118 mono blocks. They utilize the latest very fast switching GaN FETs, have a PWM switching carrier frequency in the MGHz range and I just read a great review on them on Enjoy the Music. Here’s a link:
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/superioraudio/equipment/1018/Merrill_Audio_Element_118_Monoblock_Amplif...

Tim

 For $5000 you could purchase two   NAD M12’s.  That   Is it 900 W each in bridge mode! 

 The EPC eGaN FETs switch 10x faster than silicon MOSFETs and have zero stored charge. I'm guessing that probably improves sound quality when used in a class D amp.

While they are faster its incorrect to characterize them as having 'zero stored charge'. The gate (input) capacitance is the big issue; on traditional MOSFETs it can easily be around 2000pf, which requires a bit of current from the driver circuit to switch the device at speed. GaNs tend to have less gate capacitance (about an order of magnitude less, depending on the device) and that is part of why they can switch faster. But that gate capacitance still plays a role in the driver design.
Much moreso than actual switching speed, getting dead time down is what reduces the distortion in a class D amp. Many of the GaN devices switch fast enough that amps with zero dead time can be built at pretty close to current switching speeds (400KHz or so).