"D" amps, general discussion who's 1 and why?

Sbank, Philefreak is a die hard SET amp guy.

Philefreak, I know you responded to the other thread but you should add a little more here about you experiences with class "D" and specifically your thoughts of Spectron product.

Philefreak that was great info. you gave in the other thread, I have heard from others that going with mono blocks the difference again is major, any thoughts.

My best friend has built his system around set amps with an
analog front end. I built mine with class "D" amps and a
digital front end. We listen to each other's systems all the time. It is amazing how similar they sound. I will have to say I did not like the sound of my "D" amp after i first purchased it. They do require a lot of playing time to break in.I found using balanced interconnects all the way through my system also helped.

Tan43, kindly list in detail your system set-up and your friends.

I first became intrigued about Class D after hearing that Von Schweikert and Gallo were using the Spectron Musican II to demo their products at trade shows, with generally better sonic results than many rooms showcasing costlier gear. After reading a few reviews, the Spectron Musician II became my first entry into the low end of the high end, and my results have been very impressive. The first combination of the Spectron and Totem Forest speakers provided one of the fastest, most dynamic and detailed setups I have ever heard, and very, very impressive imaging and soundstage as well. Exactly as advertised in reveiws of the Spectron.

I recently decided to upgrade speakers, which resulted in my taking my CDP and the Spectron to a dealer, where I played it with Sonus Faber Grand Piano Domus and Dynaudio S3.4's. I thought both systems sounded fantastic. To my ear, the Spectron sounded as good as, but different than, the BAT tube amps that had been driving the Dynaudios. Not as warm but faster and more detailed. My impression was that I was hearing more of what had been recorded in the studio with less coloration. Others might disagree or simply subjectively like the other sound. The Spectron ran circles around the Moon Audio integrated that was driving the Sonus in the store. The dealer seemed genuinely impressed.

During my speaker search I also spoke to high end dealer of lines like Audio Physic, Silverline, etc, who confided that he is using the current Spectron Musician II Mk2 SE in his personal system to drive MBL's.

I ended up buying Dali Euphonia MS 4's, so I have now heard my amp with four different sets of speakers, some more revealing than others. I never heard anything approaching a bad match, frankly just different degrees of excellence.

My Musician II is at least two generations old, and the technology has reportedly advanced a great deal in the last couple of years. Listen with your ears and with no preconceived notions. I have nothing against other technologes, and I am not trying to be a cheerleader for Class D. I truly don't understand why anyone would become ideological in this hobby about a certain technology over another.

If you have the time and the gear is available, I encourage you to listen for yourself. If the sound of Class D is as good or better than competing technology, then you can also start to consider that these amps generate literally no heat, that there are no issues of tube life or possible damage or degradation, etc, etc. These are just incidental benefits to a product that, to my ears, has outperformed most everything I have heard in absolute terms, but especially dollar per dollar.

My recent, limited experience with a Class D amp mimics quite closely that reported by several others above.

I bought a bel canto 300 to use in a second system. For fun, I tried it in my main system (Dynaudio S 3.4, Rogue 90 tube amp, Rogue 99 tube pre, Cary 303/300, Acoustic Zen cables). My overall impression was that it really is a very good amp, warm and musical across the board with a remarkable amount of detail in the mids.

After a few days of pretty careful listening, I decided the class D amp gave up depth in the harmonic overtones relative to the tube amp.

I'm not sure if that is standard audiospeak, but it is standard babble among instrument builders. When you strike a note on a guitar (or any resonant object, really), you hear the primary note loudest--the fundamental--but you also generate a series of higher frequencies that reverberate and these provide considerable depth to the sound. Guitars for some types of music (say, flamenco) and built to minimize overtone structure and others (say, for Celtic) and sometimes built to enhance it.

I decided that the bel canto offered a strong fundamental but considerably less overtone structure that the Rogue. Still, the differences were slight and I still like the amp a lot (and love that's it's "green"). But if you're after complex overtones, it might not be ideal.

I do appreciate the my 300 is not bel canto's best, and I suspect some more expensive designs or different implementations may be quite different.

Info on overtones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtone