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The NAD M33 will cancel your complaints about Class D

There are many reasons to like one type of sound over another. Even among what are considered very good amplifiers there’s a broad range of tastes and preferences among audiophiles. Just ask a SET aficionado!

However, no class is more maligned, inappropriately, than Class D. To hear some regulars tell it, Class D sound will thin your blood, make your teeth fall out and ruin your enjoyment of just about everything because it sounds so (fill in a lot of tropes from the 1980’s here).

I’ve been listening to NAD’s prior collaboration with Bruno Putzy and I can tell with some confidence that none of those tired old tropes apply. For reasons related much more to tonal balance than anything else, I’m sticking with Class A/B in my main system, but with the introduction of the next gen Anthem AVR receivers and the NAD M33 I may be making the switch back to class D.

You don’t have to like the M33 or the Anthem’s but can we at least agree that it’s time to retire the old guard of reasons not to buy Class D? Lets lay those poor phantoms to rest.
erik_squires
teo_audio
2,197 posts
 
Hey..., they may please some, but not others.

eg, define 'discerning ear'. What does that mean as a word paring - in a high end audio context?

The complexity of the simple statement, when unraveled, is, well, maybe a hair more explicit and detailed.

Declarations of perfection, if they occur.. will be shot down with a proper extreme prejudice. At least that’s what I may chose to do in the given moment. Tomorrow I may not care and today I might care.

Same for you, I might expect.

I might come to your abode, grift you out of the amp.. while posed as a junk collector... and then sell it to the folks who want it. Aafter listening to it, of course. After I listened to it, my opinion certainly would not be definitive. That would be...an unwell projection.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,617 posts
 
I have 4 different Class D amps running in my house. They all sound dam good. Not to mention good value. As good as most anything in each’s class if not better. I have 4 because I started with one and went from there and have not looked back since. If Class D had not worked out for me I was ready to explore tube amps. Didn’t happen....no need. Class D is like the best of SS and tube amplification in one. It’s different. So no reason to expect everyone to love it just like everything else. But personally I think it is the way to go these days and will be even more so as time goes on. I have heard the Anthem but not the NAD. It sounded very good driving Klipsch Heresy IV, the best Heresy sound I have heard to date. Lots of technology in these new amps beyond merely Class D amplification. It’s a whole new world. Some will go there others not. Count me in! I will need another new amp sometime I expect.
erik_squires OP
16,561 posts
 
I also find the NAD Class D I have a little lean, however, as I said, this is a tonal issue.  I find the ICEpower the opposite.

I have _exactly_ the same problem with A and A/B amps today.

I'm not saying you should not criticize Class D amps, but rather, criticize them for how they behave today, in the 21st century, not how they did in the 1980s.

Best,

Erik
twoleftears's avatar
twoleftears
5,320 posts
 
Has no one else read Herb R.'s review of the LKV Veros?
https://www.stereophile.com/content/lkv-veros-pwr-power-amplifier
audition__audio
1,598 posts
 
Class D have come along way but they still dont quite measure up. With the right speakers, nothing equals tube and no tube design equals OTLs.


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