Time to buy a class D amp?

Well, in my experience, my current class D amp is ultra dead silent, and not so much (by a wide margin) my last two class A valve amps, one of them a more expensive 300B valve amp.

This much better signal to noise ratio of my class D amp makes it sound much cleaner and with less grain. Highs sound smoother on it because of that. 

Thin? Well, if you get the right gear to feed it (AC Power, DAC, correct digital signal processing, neutral to warm preamp, etc) you can get a very detailed sound, with amazing soundstage and dynamics, with out losing smoothness, body and tone, at all.

Im sure you can get good sound with class A amp, but you also can do it with a good class D amp, at better price in most cases. Also lighter in weight, cooler at running temperature and with less energy consumption. 

I'm surprised at all the disdain for Class D amps in this thread and a couple of others.  They are not the be-all and end-all, but they can offer great performance at a pretty reasonable price.

I have a Peachtree Nova 300 in my office system with Focal Electra 1008 BE speakers and am currently listening to jazz from my Magnum Dynalabs Etude tuner.  The sound is very full-bodied and lifelike, with lots of detail.  Horns sound great, drumming is very tight and realistic, and it has a great soundstage for the small space I'm in.  The Peachtree, which includes a nice DAC, headphone amp, and phono stage is pretty small and light and doesn't suck up a lot of juice.  I scratch my head a bit about it's claim of 300 watts per channel, it doesn't seem like it, but I rarely crank up the system in my office.

My bedroom system has a Wyred 4 Sound ST-1000 MKII amp (460 watts per channel) with Crites modded KLF-30 speakers and an ARC LS26 pre.  It bested amps from Krell, Parasound, Lexicon, Rotel, Emotiva, and Carver, and a new one is $2,000 (I paid $1600 for a B Stock Demo).  It doesn't have the lush mid-range of my current tube monoblocks or quite the same amount of detail, but it's powerful, has excellent bass control, and doesn't take up much space.  It's a little on the warm side, most notably the top end is a little rolled off, which is actually a good thing when paired up with the Klipsch speakers.  The worst thing I can say about it is that it's kind of ugly.  It's a bit "industrial" looking.

Does it compare well against amps costing much more?  No.  Does it hold its own against other offerings in its price range?  I think so, at least of the equipment I've heard. 

clearthink,

     Anyone stating class D is "noisy as hell" very obviously doesn't know what the heck they're talking about.  It's simply not scientifically or anecdotally true.   It's not my opinion that class D is quiet as hell, it is a scientific fact. I stand by my statement that anyone claiming class D is "noisy as hell" has either never auditioned it or purposefully lying.  Have you ever heard class D?  If so, would you describe it as noisy as hell?


Elizabeth,

      Class AB Brystons are decent amps for Magnepans but, if you ever want to try out amps that have less distortion, much better bass, superior dynamics, are much quieter (much higher Signal to Noise ratio), a third of the size and weight as well as consume a fraction of the electricity, check out a good class D or two. 

Tim

Whenever I turn on my Class D amp, my dog goes running out of the room...

The comment about noise is a puzzler.  "Noisy" in what way?  I'm using a 460 watt per channel amp with 102 dB sensitive speakers and a tube preamp.  If I stick my ear literally right next to the tweeter I can hear the faintest amount of hiss.