Sterile shrill class D + sterile Revel could launch you into a whole new level of sterile...you could quickly become a sterile ASR necromonger.
Class D has never been sterile. That reputation came from people judging products with their eyes and lack of engineering background than proper sound evaluation.
Class D amps have to have a post filter to get rid of the carrier frequency. That filter will have a rising impedance with respect to frequency, causing it to interact with the speaker's impedance. Result is that the high frequency response of the speaker would change, either tilted up or down, together with potential for ringing. Note that tube amps that have high output impedance do the same thing except they do so across the spectrum.
There were also non-linearities in class D amps due to dead time in switching transistors.
Then comes the genius Bruno Putzeys who designed the Hypex amplifiers some 10 to 15 years ago. He put the output post filter into the feedback loop, and thereby nullifying its effect. He also added more gain which allowed it to in turn have more feedback, linearizing the response to near state of the art.
Fast forward a decade and he partnered with Lars Risbo and Peter Lyngdorf and created Purifi amplifiers. These worked to push distortion and noise even lower, bringing them very close to Benchmark AHB2 class G amplifier.
Purifi folks were kind enough to send me their very first review sample, the Purifi 1ET400A amplifier.
This thing is compact and weighs like it too. You can easily pick it up with one hand. Check out how low the distortion is:
It is also incredibly quiet although there are a couple of other amps that are even better:
It is not super powerful but still:
I know, I know... You don't care about measurements. So let's look at reviews of this amplifier covered by a site that caters to you all: Soundstage Hifi:
"I began evaluating the Eigentakt when I used it in May to review the Magico A1 minimonitors ($7400/pair). Before hooking up the Eigentakt, I’d been using a pair of Constellation Audio Revelation Taurus monoblocks -- massive amps that cost $40,000/pair, are specified to each output up to 500W into 8 ohms or 1000W into 4 ohms, and sound outstanding. "
[...]
"I found that the Eigentakt was not only powerful enough to drive the A1s -- it sounded as good as the Constellations. As I wrote in my review, “almost nothing about the A1s’ sound had changed -- the tonal balance was the same, the highs were just as extended and the midrange just as pure, voices were equally robust, bass just as extended, and the soundstaging and imaging were exactly as before.” What’s more, I also thought that if there were any differences in the sounds, they “were at best slight and, surprisingly, favored the Purifi.”
On noise level he says:
"Nor did the Eigentakt functionally disappoint. When I first turned it on, by flicking the main power switch on its backside and pressing Standby on the front panel, I heard no trace of noise or hum from the speakers. The ring around the Standby button glowed red, but still I wondered if the power was on. I held one ear close to the tweeter of one A1 and heard only a faint hiss. At that point, the EMM Labs DAC and preamp were also in circuit and powered up -- when I turned them off, the hiss got even fainter. I had to put my ear almost on the tweeter to hear anything at all. The Eigentakt is one quiet amp."
Precisely as measurements predicted.
He gets a second opinion:
"
After completing my review of the Magico A1, I traveled to the UK to shoot some videos for our YouTube channel, and lent the review sample of the Eigentakt to fellow reviewer Diego Estan, who hooked it up to his McIntosh Laboratory C47 preamp-DAC ($4500). Diego had exactly the same experience I had. When he first powered up the Purifi and Mac, he was startled to hear only a faint hiss from the tweeter of one of his Focal Sopra No1 speakers -- a hiss that grew fainter still when he switched off the preamp. Diego admires superquiet components -- he really liked that aspect of the Eigentakt.
He then compared the Eigentakt to his McIntosh MC302 stereo power amp ($5500, 300Wpc into 8, 4, or 2 ohms), and found them sonically indistinguishable -- their tonal balances were identical, and he didn’t think he heard any more or less detail with either."
He concludes thusly:
"I was bowled over by the Purifi Eigentakt’s sound and operation. It turned on silently, made almost no noise, provided more than enough power while generating hardly any heat, and passed music through so transparently, at volume levels from low to high, that it left me in near disbelief that so small a box could accomplish so much. Diego Estan had the same experience. In fact, I like the Eigentakt so much that I want to keep it here permanently, to review speakers with and to compare with other amps, particularly those based on Purifi 1ET400A modules. It will be interesting to hear if any of the latter improve on the Eigentakt’s sound."
So objective and subjectively your comments are wrong. Class D amplifiers that I recommend are superb. Absolutely superb. They not only sound great, they don't heat up your house, don't break your back carrying them, and don't take much space in your system. With a number of companies packaging them in nice boxes and selling direct, they easily put many high-end amplifiers to shame across the board.
