This really is rich. First we have ricevs telling Ralph how to redesign his amps, and now kuribo has a go.
Meanwhile, Ralph is model of restraint and superhuman patience.
Atma-Sphere Class D… Amazing
Today I picked up my Atma-Sphere Class D Amps. These aren’t broken in yet. And they are simply amazing. I’ve listen to a lot of High End Class D. Some that cost many times what Atma-Sphere Class D costs. I wasn’t a fan of any of them. But these amps are amazing. I really expected to hate them. So my expectations were low. The Details are of what I’ve never heard from any other amps. They are extremely neutral. To say the realism is is extremely good is a gross understatement. They are so transparent it’s scary. These amps just grab you and suck you into the music. After I live with them some and get them broken in. And do some comparisons to some other high end Amps Solid State, Tubes and Class D’s, also in other systems I’ll do a more comprehensive review. But for now, these are simply amazing amps.. Congrats to Ralph and his team. You guys nailed on these.
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I haven’t really told him how to redesign his amp have I? I merely suggested ditching the expensive case and power supply and offering a more competitively priced product. Clearly there is a lot larger market segment at $1000 than at $4000-$5000. I am sure I am not alone in saying that I would not pay $5000 for an amp that offers me at best similar performance to one priced at $1000- it's a non-starter. |
@kuribo If they can ’tune’ the sound just by changing opamps they are either using really terrible opamps or don’t know what they are doing! We’ve had the idea of a SMPS meant for the amp for a couple of years. That’s not a trivial design project although its certainly an one than the module itself was! Of course we looked at available SMPSs including those meant for audio, but again we ran into not only performance (which impinges the sound and performance of the module) and protection issues but also cost issues! If we make it ourselves then we solve three problems at the same time. In the meantime the toroidal supply is less expensive, works right and we have the right protection although we need a more expensive chassis to support it. IME though, that chassis helps with the mancave/WAF issue. In my case this means that I don’t have to have a mancave to run my stereo (although I do have to be careful about cargo shorts); it can be in the living room without inciting ire. Ya picks ya poison I suppose. I should also mention we're concerned about noise. For example Bruno uses a current pump to create lower voltages for opamps and the like. We found that is noisier than using a more expensive supply for the same task. As a result the amp puts less noise on the AC line than most tube amps. |
@atmasphere , I agree with that whenever SQ can be affected, but making thick chasis just to protect the amp during the shipping seems to me unreasonable - just pack it well! I think what @kuribo says is very reasonable, and this is not something in what he can have some personal interest. If you manage to lower the price of your product (without sacrificing SQ) , given its good or even outstanding sonic characteristics, your product will become much more competitive and you will be able to sell much more of them having higher overall gain, talking in pragmatic terms, unless you wish to have a product for a very selected amount of people. |
These are the claims of customers- they prefer the "sound" of certain op amps over others, not mine! |
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