class d

Dpac996, are you sure you are not generalizing a little prematurely? You have owned one switching amp which you did not like, and you're concluding that no switching amps can be of your liking? I have heard several amps that I disliked in class D, classic solid state amps that made me run away from the room, and tubes that put me right to sleep. . . should I conclude that the whole industry is immature and move to butterfly collecting? G.

Guidocorona what's with the 301 mono's and damping factor being so low and to get the watts up there I would need to order the 301's in Par configuration to get 850 watts at 8 ohms and 1150 watts at 4 ohms.

301 mono blocks $30K
8 ohms 400/850 (ser/par)
4 ohms 650/1150 watts (ser/par)
Damping Factor 60

OR

312 stereo $16K
8 ohms 500 watts
4 ohms 1000 watts
Damping Factor 1000


Damping factor seems very low compared to the stereo 312 which is 1000. I was looking into getting a pair of these but I have to say I'm a little concerned wondering if they will have issues driving a heavy load, MBL 101E's and then the price of $30K WOW!. Looking at the power of the 312 Stereo the power in 8 ohms 312 is 500 but when you look at 4 ohms it produces 1000 not much less then the 301 mono blocks at 1150 watts.

Then I look at the Spectron mono blocks, scary power. I have never had any amps in my system with this type of power and only cost $14,400.

Description: Watts per channel, both channels driven
2,400 Watts at 8 Ohms
3,200 Watts at 4 Ohms
5,600 Watts at 2 Ohms
Staggering headroom of 7,000 watts over 500 msec

This is just unbelievable and would totally control my MBL's with no issues.

You seem to have some experience with both product lines so what's your take on this.

I still have the ARC REF3 pre that I would pair up with the Spectron's in Balanced configuration but I would also look into getting say the Einstein and a couple others to compare once they were broken-in.

Ralph Karsten posted a long explanation a while back regarding amplifier specifications with particular attention to power and damping factor.

Bottom line was most buyers place an unnecessary emphasis on damping factor specifications when considering an amplifier.

Hello Dev,

Simon Thacher from Spectron write that power in rms is almost irrelevant to the quality of the sound (it just defines the loudness) and he analyzes headroom in transistor, tube (regular and OTL) and switching amplifiers:

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/manufacture/0708/index.html

All The Best
Rafael.
P.S. Until I got 2nd Spectron amp to run in monoblocks I had no idea what my B&W 802D are capable of...

Hi Rafael, I was hoping that we would be able to move this side discussion to another thread so not to highjack this one, but it looks there are already a few answers to your post. . . so moving to a different venue is no longer as clean an option.

In answer to the damping factor of 60 on the 301 monos, I fear I do not have an answer. I do not know why their damping factor is low, nor I know if this issue would impact your MBLs. . . although I suspect it might. Those are questions for Jeff Rowland. Furthermore, I have never heard the 301s, so it is a little difficult for me to comment on their sonic characteristics. As you know I am very fond of both Spectron and JRDG 312. Unfortunately I have not had the opportunity of listening to both of them side by side on my system, nor I had the opportunity of hearing Spectron in mono configuration as yet. . . . and speculative audible comparisons are always a little. . . speculative in nature. But we have highjacked this thread long enough. . . how about now returning it to its intended purpose? G.