Class D Amplification Announcement

@jjss49 Thanks for mentioning the AGD amps. How would you compare to an all-tube system in general? To be more specific, let's say if someone like the tube sound and has not been satisfied with SS ... should this person consider AGD?

P.S. I'm in no way implying that tubes are better than SS or vice versa. But for my personal taste in music, tubes offer something that SS does not. Of course, just the opposite can be true for someone else.

Coming from being familiar with pro amps, I had some adverse opinions regarding using them for Hi-Fi. Ok for HT, but not Hi-FI. Had class AB most of my life in my stereo setups. Then an opportunity came to test some lightly used MBL N15 Class D monoblock amps. There was a little glare, but they sounded so clean and powerful, with great bass of course, overall significantly better than my ARC Ref 160M (within my setup). Changed my cables from silver to copper and it got better.

I took the plunge and bought them. Several months have passed and they have just gotten better. Visiting audiophile friends confirm this, they cannot identify them as a Class D anymore just from listening. Perhaps they needed enough burn-in? I believe the original owner gave up on them too soon. MBL’s LASA technology has been around for a while but it does not seem to get all the merit it deserves.

This experience opened my eyes to the progress of class D amp technology.

+1 For AGD Audions

I used to be a die hard SET guy.

No more. And now no other amp but the AGD Class D.

Compared to any amp IME, AGD is in a class of its own.

A GaN based amp but the designer holds several patents from when he was a top exec at Infineon-major European chip company. One patent is for his proprietary, unique GaN module. He describes it as being dedicated to be used in Audio. Compared to other GaN chips designed for use in such things as radar,

The result are AGD amps that are superbly like real music.

All the best of SS and tubes… to put it mildly.

@mglik please be specific on what you have compared the AGD amps to? Merrill? Atmasphere? Others? Thanks

@arafiq

@jjss49 Thanks for mentioning the AGD amps. How would you compare to an all-tube system in general? To be more specific, let’s say if someone like the tube sound and has not been satisfied with SS ... should this person consider AGD?

hard for me to answer specifically, as i am sure you can understand, all tube systems can vary alot in their degree of softness at the frequency extremes and their midrange ’bloom’

i still have alot of tube gear, mostly audio research tube amps (ref 110, 75, vt 100-2, v70, vt60) and still one a c-j linestage (et7-ii) and a don sachs pre - none of which i use hardly at all anymore... but my point in mentioning this is i clearly like a more extended, powerful and more transparent presentation, even from tubed gear

that said, i would summarize (as i did in an earlier post quite a while back when i first got the audions) what they do is rather like a beneficial cross-breed between the best of tubes and ss

-- treble is very clear, extended, fast and high resolution, but still exceptionally smooth and not at all harsh (think of a very very high resolution color photo or video picture, where the pixel count is so high that the texture is actually velvety, with absolutely zero perceptible grain or grit...)

-- mids are also very natural, detailed, fleshed out, but in proportion to the treble and bass, and not moved forward or accentuated relative to them (to many the forward and magnified midrange can be a defining aspect of tube-sonics... )

-- bass is airy but exceptionally tuneful deep and solid... here definitely this aspect is tip top solid state, which exceeds that of pretty much any tube amp -- short of truly mega ones with hundreds of watts of output power (think vtl wotan or arc ref600/610)

-- imaging is very open wide and deep, layered and highly specific... one can argue if image depth is 100% as good as my arc ref amps on their best day, but it is very close... i find that front end quality is very highly determinative of imaging/soundstaging quality

-- and of course, the behavior of the audions with low impedance loads is characteristic of a good ss amp, without the limitations of the classic output transformer based tube power amps

hope the above helps... i do believe that agd dealers (and alberto himself, if bought directly) will still extend a trial period with return privileges

several other agd owners are here, they can chime in to add to or differ from my observations above