The revolution has begun!

A serious advantage of a digital amp system is that you can add....or use alone the $500 Minidsp flex.....for tweaking your system or bi-amping. If you have a CD player and that is your only source then you can buy the Flex and use it as your volume control (it has coax digital in and out)......and also use it to completely eliminate room nodes and equalize your speaker.......a big deal....way cleaner sound. Then, if you want to bi-amp your speakers, you can.....either keeping the passive xover in your two way.....or making your own two way speaker......So, that is CD transport to $500 flex to $1500 digital amp and then to your speakers (now totally equalized) or add another $1500 amp and biamp with eq. If you need to stream and use other sources, then you can use the IFI Zenstream or other streamer ahead of the Minidsp and still either equalize or biamp.

All rooms have bass nodes....when eliminated....you have much cleaner sound and better imaging.......So, great digital amp sound plus MORE.....much more.

How about 2 12 inch woofers on an open baffle and above it an AMT or Beryllium tweeter.......biamped.......or a slim box with 2 6.5 inch Purfii woofs and a super tweeter on top of the box.....for dipole highs above 1K......so easy.....so pure sounding to biamp using digital amps and the flex. Lot’s of incredible possibilities......imagination is key.

Revolution...  Lots of discussion around this topic of digital amplification.  I have not tried any amplifiers that are not class A or A/B in my system.  I'm sure there may be some in the other realms that are great sounding, however I've heard improvements made in my analog preamp and amp system just through my source component digital domain by improving jitter and noise.  I personally moved away from the analog source media when I felt the digital domain progress I made a couple of years ago was just as good, and in a few cases slightly better than my analog source.  My speakers are easy to drive and very efficient and with my 4 different flea-watt amplifiers of both solid-state and tube all class A topology, the most realistic sound I've heard has come from those flea-watt class A amplifiers.  Each one is slightly different than the other, but all are satisfying to me.  If you get that level of satisfaction from any of your component's be they analog, digital or combination, good for you.  I haven't heard any of the digital-domain type of amplifiers on my system, however in other systems, I've heard a slight "hardness" that I hadn't detected with analog preamp/amplification systems.  Not a put-down, just preferential difference.  I would be delighted to have a pure digital front-end to speaker set-up to try on my speakers to hear the difference.  I have watched and heard the improvements in the digital realm especially over the past 4 years and I believe the best in that realm is yet to come.  Source-wise, especially...  

@yyzsantabarbara Did Ric tweak your Voyager?

@ricevs I have not gotten into streaming/ripping and at 74+ it’s not a priority. In your last post you first mentioned the GaN 1 can be used with a CD PLAYER + Flex, then a few sentences later- a TRANSPORT. So, either? I am admittedly confused when it comes to digital tech. 

I am using a Audiolab 6000 CDT transport into a Audio Alchemy DDP-1 + PS 5 dac pre + LPS. My speakers are Emerald Physics 3.4s; Open Baffle, concentric 12" woofers with 1" polyester tweeters AND outboard XOs!, oh and your EVS 1200. I managed to blow one of the modules in my Voyager, but damn, the EVS 1200 is fantastic too. Even though I had expensive Wire World XLRs and speaker cables, apparently they did not bring out the best in our EVS 1200, whereas the Ali-Express Odin 2 knockoffs do. Who knew back then?

@jerryg123 I, too have owned many class D amps, but not until I bought Ric’s EVS1200 (based on the ICEPower AS 1200 modules) + Rics Pixie Dust, was I happy, even moreso with the LSA Voyager GaN 350, I would agree with you

A "transport" is just the spinner in a CD player.  Almost every CD player has a coax digital out so can be used as just a "Transport".  Your Audiolab has no DAC in it so you call it a transport rather than a CD player.  Any player including universal players like an Oppo can be used via its coax out to the flex and into a digital amp.  However, you cannot play an SACD into the flex.....nor is SACD info allowed out of a normal coax out.  The amp and the Flex are PCM only devices.  You could make an integrated amp with digital amp modules where you change DSD info to PCM before it goes into the main pcm to pwm conversion.....Technics does this.  You can burn your SACDs to a computer and use software in a computer to change it to high speed PCM and then output that to a streamer like the IFI Zenstream to play through digital amps.

You get a Flex and a single stereo digital amp and you have a blast....you add a second amp and get rid of the crossover in your speaker and you are in heaven.  No more bass nodes.....full equalization......no more binding posts....no more passive xovers.....just pure sound.....dynamic as hell.  Fun times await folks......the future is now!

@tweak1 Yes, I did get it modded by Ric. It was an improvement over stock, especially on the top end. I had another amp that had more low-end power but not as good on top, I sold the Voyager because I wanted more power for the bass with my old Thiel CS3.7. Everything I just mentioned was sold.