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Class D is just Dandy!

I thought it was time we had a pro- Class D thread. There's plenty of threads about comparisons, or detractors of Class D.

That's fine, you don't have to like Class D amps, and if you don't please go participate on one of those threads.

For those of us who are very happy and excited about having musical, capable amps that we can afford to keep on 24/7 and don't require large spaces to put them in, this thread is for you.

Please share your experiences with class D amps!
erik_squires
h2oaudio
38 posts
 
Thank you Erik for starting this thread. Since I am a manufacturer and of Class D at that. Therefore, I am obviously biased. So I think my comments isn’t worth much and rightly so I suppose. Anyway, I won’t get into endless debate on the technical mumbo jumbo, rather to say that class D CAN (and this is the key word) sound extraordinary. Then again, the same can be said for tube, conventional class A and class AB design. 

Henry
erik_squires OP
16,197 posts
 
As a young electronic technician, and PCB designer, I was entranced at the idea of ultra-wide bandwidth electronics.

We often made gear for theaters that was flat to 100kHz. Very transparent sounding stuff. Tandberg was one of the brands I remember sounding great at the time, with astonishing slew rates.

However, in modern times, I can’t say it has been the slew rate or bandwidth that has won me over at all. Spectral is one such amp, which I heard, and it was OK, but no, it didn’t stop me from buying anything else. That is, if the ultra-wide bandwidth had benefits, it didn't win me over to it.
erik_squires OP
16,197 posts
 
Thanks to all of the recent kind words.  As pointed out, I can't believe this thread is really 3 years old. I can't believe we are still reading and dismissing the same old arguments.

I hope to read more about what new products have come out recently worth listening to.
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
heaudio ,
Slope on the edged is not caused by phase shift, it is caused by bandwidth limiting.
Oh dear! Which is caused by the output filter which and causes phase shift and yes if you must have that included, "bandwidth limiting" as that’s what the filter is there to do, without bandwidth limiting you have no phase shift!!!! please get it right.


heaudio This is another ClassD no filter with a bit of overshoot likely due to underdamping also indicating from a frequency response peak.
You really need to do some more understanding, JA used his high order special testing output filters because he didn't yet have the Audio Precision's auxiliary AUX-0025 passive low-pass testing filter, which eliminates noise    

Stereophile
Audio Precision sells a precision passive low-pass filter to be used between the output of an amplifier with a class-D output stage and an Audio Precision analyzer. Unfortunately, I have not yet upgraded my test system with one of these filters, so to examine the MX-D1's performance at low signal levels, I used an active sixth-order low-pass filter with a 20kHz bandwidth and a floating input.


guidocorona
4,298 posts
 

@H2Oaudio nailed the crux of the matter on the proverbial head. Like amps of other topologies, some class D amps do sound extraordinary... The Rowland Daemon integrated that I am reviewing is definitely one of these. It is already trending to sound extraordinary, after just a little more than 300 hours of break-in.


G.

   



 

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