Time to buy a class D amp?

George,

     I believe your bringing up tweeter damage supposedly caused by class D amps and warning not to leave them on 24/7 are just red herrings since these claims are poorly documented and defy reason.  Are you now so desperate that you're now reverting to attempting to scare individuals away from using class D amps in their systems?

    I've used two stereo and a pair of monoblocks in my combo music and ht system that have been powered on 24/7 now for over the last 5 years  with only very positive and zero negative results.  Just excellent sound performance, no excess heat and low electricity bills.

    You need a new strategy besides disinformation.

Tim
     

Like some one said here they have one that goes to 1mhz in bandwidth!! this one will certainly over time cook or quickly the tweeters voice coils.

I even leave them on most of the time as recommended.

I don't think this is a good practice, as you don't know or hear how much switching noise is being let through to the tweeters, if a bit, it can slowly temper and blue the voice coils, as what happened to my friends Wilson tweeters, they still worked, he was just complaining that his highs had deteriorated, and yes those well known expensive Class-D's were left on 24/7 for over 1 year on his speakers.

This is all nonsense. A typical residual waveform might be 1/2 volt; into 8 ohms that's 0.03 watts. A lower powered tweeter might be rated at 2 watts and would never see any temperature rise with such a small signal.

This anecdote is misleading, false, is apparently calculated to cause alarm; its not based on an understanding of how class D amps operate. 

I have been using a class D amp for over four years now with no damage to my speakers. I too, believe the damage was as Ralph said. A case of amp overload. This makes the most sense to me.

Looking at your posts, I have noted that made an error in my initial post. 
I wrote: 

" I have no doubts that they (class D amps) posses the maximum ratio performance/sound quality among the amplifiers of all classes", 

whereas I meant that class D amplifiers give the maximum ratio
performance/price, among all classes of amplifiers, where 
performance = sound quality. Or more widely, we may let 
performance = (sound quality - weight - size - energy consumption).
Indeed, i think that Class D amplifiers are unbeatable in this issue and, very unlikely, this can be changed in the future. Hooking up for the first time my $1500 class D amp to my system, i was sincerely surprised how one can get that quality of sound for that money!
At the same time, i think Class D is still under the basic development process (e.g. @yyzsantabarbara has posted a website speaking about recent developments in PURIFI Audio). 

I share (a common?) opinion  that class D amplifiers give a clear transparent sound with details and resolution. True, but something is missing. The fact that sound is transparent does not mean that it is warm and live. Take a frozen or a wax figure. It is clear, transparent, even more bright than a human, but you can see that it is not a human - the spirit is missing. Likewise, Class D gives a detailed, bright  sound, though  some warmness is perhaps missing. 

It is possible that there are class D amps, that i have never auditioned,
sound  non-wax and warm (many of you mention Nord Acoustics  amplifiers). But it turned out that one I have, PS Audio Stellar S300,  an ICEpower model,  should be one of the warmest sounding class D amps (so i am lucky!).  Athough i can still enjoy it, not to the same extent. I share what George says in points 1 and 2. I do not think these are technical issues, rather they come from the auditioning experience. The tweeter damage issue, i think, should not be typical for any class D amp -- perhaps, this particular case was provoked by some wrong current or a defect of fabrication or the amp or/and CD. 

Thanks @golfnutz for your notes on Red Dragon S500 with Thiel CS3.6 that i bear in mind (I also own CS6s, both are excellent speakers, CS6s sound a bit more real though). 

I see Class D, being an ongoing development (carried out by the scientists), as the future of the amplifiers. Already today (unlike electric autos vs gasoline ones), Class D amps are considerably cheaper than Class A, AB amplifiers. They are much  lighter, smaller, do not get hot and consume little energy. With all of this, the sound quality that they give is not that bad at all, and, i think, it will become better in the future. I think this development deserves a 100% support from all of us. 

Cheers, 

Nodari
 

development deserves a 100% support from all of us

👍

yep!