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...
The revolution has begun!
Digital amps along with digital xovers are the future.....and you can have it NOW. I am not going to say that a $1400 Peachtree GaN1 amp will sound better than a $120K MSB Select, $145K Boulder Preamp and Bouder $250K mono blocks with $20K worth of cables in between (over half a million plus power cords and amp stands)......but it did beat the Holo May KTE with the Holo Serene Pre and Kinki B7 mono blocks with $1000 worth of interconnects ($13k). So what will it take to beat this $200 digital board from Elegant Audio Solutions powered from a $100 switching power supply? With a digital amp you do not need a DAC or a preamp or regular amp with feedback, tubes, or transistors. With digital amps you can bi or triamp your speaker drivers directly without the distortion of passive components. In fact, I would bet that if you bought two GaN 1 amps, bought the $600 digital xover from minisdp (with great linear supply and great coax cables) and biamped some drivers directly that it would sound better than most $50K systems. You could get 2 12 inch woofs and mount them on an open baffle and put a beryllium tweenter on top and set the xover to 1K or less (48db per octave). You hardwire your speaker cable to the woofers voice coil wires and use Music Purifiers and Ground Enhancers on each driver.....Bybee Clarifiers on the back of the woofer magnets.......speaker wires hardwired via plastic clamps into the amps (no binding posts or spades allowed here!). Of course, you can triamp.....and manufacturers will soon have powered digital speaker so all you will need is a source.
There will be other manufacturers designing and building digital amps that will (no doubt) be better than the EAS boards.....but they will come at a price. These, yet to be made digital amps will blow the industry wide open....as no more big heavy expensive boxes will ever need to be purchased......but what EAS has not is fantastic. When I do some mods to the Peachtree amp next month it should get a step or two better. Have fun!
http://tweakaudio.com/EVS-2/The_Audio_Revolution_has_begun.html
I have started a webpage about all this and more and will be updating it continuously.
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@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
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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. |
Needing more umph over the PS Audio M700s is why I bought Rics EVS 1200. Unfortunately, both my cables (Series 8 Wire World and Boutique PCs that didn't plumb the depths compared to what Im using now), and a Solid State vertical rack got in the way of my hearing what it is capable of. This was remedied when I came across a solid maple table (5 X 2 x 2") locally for $270!, and in the process of moving the kit out of the vertical I rested my V on a floating platform from which it slipped off. That would have been ok, but I had the top off and resting sideways on top, so when the amp slipped off the top nose diving into one of the modules. It looked ok until I turned the system on I had major fireworks, and so installed the EVS 1200. As much as I raved about it in a long thread when I first got it, which Ric asked me to take down for health reasons he wasn't going to make any more of them, the Voyager bettered it then. And so, it sat on the sidelines. Glad I still have it |
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