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The Truth about Modern Class D

All my amps right now are Class D. ICEpower in the living room, and NAD D 3020 in the bedroom.

I’ve had several audiophiles come to my home and not one has ever said "Oh, that sounds like Class D."

Having said this, if I could afford them AND had the room, I’d be tempted to switch for a pair of Ayre monoblocks or Conrad Johnson Premiere 12s and very little else.

I’m not religious about Class D. They sound great for me, low power, easy to hide, but if a lot of cash and the need to upgrade ever hits me, I could be persuaded.

The point: Good modern Class D amps just sound like really good amplifiers, with the usual speaker/source matching issues.

You don’t have to go that route, but it’s time we shrugged off the myths and descriptions of Class D that come right out of the 1980’s.
erik_squires
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This thread will be closed if the bashing between Eric and George don't stop. 
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,936 posts
 
I’m not talking about wattage Ralph, and you know that very well, give up and try not to go into product protection mode, when ever GaN is mentioned.
This comment does not make sense when compared to
The ones around now using GaN’s are either dinky little office type class-D’s or expensive ones that haven’t utilized the technology as far as Technics did.
'Dinky' in this part of the world means 'small'.

And since you chose to make the usual ad hominem attack, can you get it that we've been working with GaNFETs in most of our prototypes except the very early ones? Why not, they're quite inexpensive!
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
’Dinky’ in this part of the world means ’small’.

Like I said you know exactly what I mean, and yes it means the same in Au. I’m talking about dinky ones the size of cigarette packet, some that can do 120w sometimes with external wall wart smp supplies, some that are shilled on these Audiogon pages. I would bet the 54kg Technics SE-R1 would eat them alive same wattage. at 8ohm
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,936 posts
 
I’m talking about dinky ones the size of cigarette packet, some that can do 120w
Maybe something you don't understand is that the size of a class D circuit board says little about its power. They have to be small in order to keep radiated noise down. So traces are short (less inductance), there are usually at least 4 layers in the board and so on. So a board that is the size of a pack of cigarettes is that way even if it can make more power. Most circuit boards (modules) employ ICs to do most of the class D functions- comparator, drivers for the outputs, high side switches and so on. This helps them be more compact and so less noisy. Our prototype boards make 100 watts and despite being relatively discreet (no dedicated chips) its smaller than a pack of cigarettes too. That's just common sense on the engineering side. I'm sure the actual Technics amplifier circuit is quite compact as well- my guess is that because of its very high switching speed, its even more compact!
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