A great article on Class D/switching amps

I read the article in the latest Absolute Sound and it would appear that the Class D technology is still evolving. Interesting that the reviewers either seemed to love them or hate them; one reviewer in particular seemed to characterize the class D amps as cold and sterile and didn't like the majority of the amps reviewed. For a new design there seem to be several of these class D amps on the used market already which goes to show that they are not everyone's cup of tea.

Again I cannot imagine that Class D or ICE amps all sound alike. I have not had the opportunity to listen to them side-by-side, but only one, the Red Dragon, caused me to go back repeatedly to listen to it on the Audio Zen speakers.

Bobgates -
Let me respond to each of your comments separately.

I would agree that Class D technology is still evolving. Those things which are not still evolving have been abandoned.
To some reviewers, Class D will seem cold and sterile because it lacks the distortion components that they interpret as warmth.
As for the used market, please note that Class D is not so new. I bought my first pair of Rowland 201 about a year after they became available and that was 3 years ago. The fact that something is for sale on the used market doesn't "goes to show" anything other than the fact that people bought them new and decided to try something else. In fact, it might well mean that they liked Class D so much that they upgraded within the genre.

What is everyones cup of tea,thats boring.Seriously what do you think the Krell guy is going to say?

Teajay, I had a chance to audition Jeff Rowland Model 501/Concerto pre combo in my systems and did not like it at all. Despite nice, powerfull bottom end everything else in sound presentation was wrong IMHO. As J.Valin correctly ponit out treble info is very limited and you got "cut-off" feeling most of the time. Midrange was detailed, but somehow mechanical in presentation. Two friends of mine visited me during several days(actually 25days!) auditioning period and both of them did not like Rowland sound. One of them owns same amps(Pass XA100) as you do. I also had a chance to audition Bel Canto REF1000s and did not like them as well.
BTW, it is pretty interesting that both J.Valin and R.Harley did not like D-class amp too much, but both of them are using pretty good tube and solid state amps as their reference's.
IMHO D(or T) class amps have a very long way to go before we will have something of truly reference calibar here. That strange high frequency behaviour is still a problem of most D class amps and this problem is not pretty simple to solve(look at the way D class amps work).
Of course, it is only my humble opinion...