Class D Amp For 'Stats?

Curriemt11,

I have owned many amps similar or perhaps parallel to what your tastes may be. I have owned McCormack DNA-2 Deluxe, Quicksilver V4 monos, auditioned the Ayre, as well as the Rogue Zeus. I now own the H20 Signature Monoblocks. Srajan's review is on the money. I would also take note of Srajan's review on the Nuforce, in specific where he states, almost all ICE powered class D amps sound a certain way... EXCEPT the H20 Signature monos. That is not a coincidence.

The H20 Signature Mono's are the real deal. Are they the best amp out there? I will never claim that. Everyone has sonic "preferences", however, they do carry themselves with the heft of a true class A solid state, with the liquidity of tubes, yet without the harshness or grain at high levels of solid state, and without the euphoric coloration of tubes.

As for system matching, I have had no problem. I have my system posted here on A'gon and there should be a clickable link by my moniker.

If you are seriously considering a new amp, I would try those you are interested in, in your home, in your system.

I would also make certain to audition the H20 Sig Mono's as Henry offers a trial. For what they do, at their price point, they will get the respect they deserve sooner or later when people hear them.

Try the Channel Islands D-200s which use UcD modules. These modules take feedback at the speaker terminals and are said to be load independent which would mate particularly well with speakers having large impedance swings. Said to be the best sounding of the class D lot.

Review here:

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue22/cia_d200.htm

"Switching amplifiers have an output filter and, this filter will interact to some degree with the load impedance."

I have said this many times before, and I am glad that someone finally concurs.

'Stats are not a purely capacitive load, although they do have a great deal of capacitive reactance. Most of the new Class D amps will handle the capacitance, but the low value of the absolute impedance may present a problem. For reasons stated above.

Anyone who thinks that "all" Class D amps are mechanical have not heard any of the new genre. Period.

Art, I imagine you forgot my speakers have an impedance of eight tenths of an ohm. One H2O owning fellow I know is trying out his on new ultra light ribbons at .4 ohms, and likes very much what he is hearing.

The NuForce Reference 9 amps sound extremely natural and musical with conventional speakers and have no problem driving loads well under 1 ohm. That said, I believe the NuForce and probably a lot of the other amps (even analog amps) sound somewhat different when hooked up to a large capacitive load. I believe that Jason at NuForce has had some experience using NuForce amps to drive SoundLabs speakers. So you might want to contact him to see how that experiment turned out.