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I went from Class D to Luxman A/AB - And most of what you think is wrong

Hi everyone,

As most of you know, I’m a fan of Class D. I have lived with ICEPower 250AS based amps for a couple of years. Before that I lived with a pair of Parasound A21s (for HT) and now I’m listening to a Luxman 507ux.


I have some thoughts after long term listening:
  • The tropes of Class D having particularly bad, noticeable Class D qualities are all wrong and have been for years.
  • No one has ever heard my Class D amps and gone: "Oh, wow, Class D, that’s why I hate it."
  • The Luxman is a better amp than my ICEPower modules, which are already pretty old.

I found the Class D a touch warm, powerful, noise free. Blindfolded I cannot tell them apart from the Parasound A21s which are completely linear, and run a touch warm due to high Class A operation, and VERY similar in power output.


The Luxman 507 beats them both, but no amp stands out as nasty sounding or lacking in the ability to be musical and involving.


What the Luxman 507 does better is in the midrange and ends of the spectrum. It is less dark, sweeter in the midrange, and sounds more powerful, almost "louder" in the sense of having more treble and bass. It IS a better amplifier than I had before. Imaging is about the same.


There was one significant operational difference, which others have confirmed. I don't know why this is true, but the Class D amps needed 2-4 days to warm up. The Luxman needs no time at all. I have no rational, engineering explanation for this. After leaving the ICEPower amps off for a weekend, they sounded pretty low fi. Took 2 days to come back. I can come home after work and turn the Luxman on and it sounds great from the first moment.


Please keep this in mind when evaluating.


Best,

E
erik_squires
toetapaudio
474 posts
 
@rocray, my experience is only with Hypex based class D amps and these have been very reliable.

@georgehifi please try class D amps by SPEC, Audio-Nec and Mola Mola before commenting further.
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georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
@georgehifi please try class D amps by SPEC, Audio-Nec and Mola Mola before commenting further.
Don't need to, they are all variations on a technology that has an achilles heel that can't be fixed.
Even Mark levinson tried to get around the problem with these massive monoblocks with very robust "higher order" output filters to get rid of the switching noise as to not effect the phase shift into the audio band, but it flopped also. https://ibb.co/YdVr6Wr

The only way is much higher switching frequency with low order filters that are also set much higher, aka Technics SE-R1 because of the GaN technology. 

Cheers George   
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glennewdick's avatar
glennewdick
1,725 posts
 
Everything evolves. early transistor based amps from the 60's-70's were sort of horrid, it took them a decade to really flush out the transistor amp sound and another decade to sort out the different types of transistors and class types now we have another new class type and its finally being fleshed out and evolving. 

 yes I agree time to move past the class war and just enjoy the music. There is horrid class A amps and great ones just like there is horrid class D amps and great ones.

 I'm just hoping class D comes to a time when its not a few manufacturers making modules that everyone else plunks in their own case and marks it up ridiculously (i'm looking at you Rowland).  

Time for the innovators to take over. (cherry is one of these I think)

I love all classes and SS and tube I consider myself a moderate and just want to enjoy the music. 

great thread by the way. 


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