Switch from Parasound JC-1 to Bel Canto Ref 1000?

I have the bel canto ref 1000 mkii driving a pair of dynaudio audience 82 and it is wonderful. I live in DFW and replaced my class ab amp with these. Driven at full throttle they truly run cool and offer incredible control. I urge you to try these. So many upsides it's hard to see why anyone disses this technology. This is the future especially when you get a Texas sized electric bill in the summer!!!

So Ryan, whatever happened with this? I am very curious to know if you or anyone has compared the JC-1's with the Bel Canto's (or with Spectron, for that matter).

Review, the listed links and then go listen.

Class D amps seem very hard to make well, so most license the basic blocks and go from there. Not a bad thing if it's really good. Based on pricing, I see some really BAD stuff going on however. The advantages of the design (low cost) relative to the disadvantage (too numerous to list) aren't factored in to the amps price. The prices are well in excess of where they should be for what the product offers.

If they sounded the SAME as a comparative A/B amp, and use FAR LESS expensive materials, where's the price leverage that the size and weight brings to the table for wide-band CLASS D use? I see massive mark-ups and designs that are not comparative on an absolute sense to A/B amplifiers.

Not knowing what CLASS D is all about seems to have allowed the price to escalate to levels the technology and cost should be allied AGAINST (weight and high cost), not for.

From my perspective, the amps are, at a reasonable price, a casual listening product but not yet eclipsing even modest A/B amps in linearity and sound. Is the high price of some of these products (I could name two vendors) done just to "buy" relevance and at the same time, pad the pockets of those selling them?

CLASS D seems to work well for low frequency applications (subs) but suffer many problems with wide band amplification. I'd argue that a good CLASS B amp might be more linear even for subs. I use Velodyne DD10+ subs, so I'm not necessarily accepting CLASS D as better simply based on ownership.

http://www.audioholics.com/education/amplifier-technology/clone-amplifiers

or

http://www.hificritic.com/downloads/Class-D.pdf

or

http://www.audioholics.com/education/amplifier-technology/the-truth-about-digital-class-d-amplifiers

Those articles are from 2-8 years old.

Please listen to Hypex NCore amps if possible, I think that they are superb.

You can build a pair of NC400 mono blocks for < $2000

I have amps using their NC1200 modules with a SMPS.

The times, they are a changin'...

Not so much has it changed. The basic ICE block (and the other two vendors products) are still the same, but with a few "added" minor tweaks. The point is, the PRICE has NOT changed and it SHOULD!

We need to bring people into the hobby and not push them away with greedy pricing by vendors. I see almost no attempt to leverage the reduced parts cost through to the consumer. BEL CANTO and Mark Levinson products are purely leveraging the name against a cheap manufacturing cost to maximize PROFIT margin. The pricing has zero concern for the consumer’s pocket book. These are TODAYS PRODUCTS.

Once it is priced fairly, THEN we can maybe talk about the sound. Yes, I heard a HYBRID class D power supply / Class A audio stage integrated that sounded good. It was priced WAY out of reach, too.

CLASS D is still a tricky build, though. That's why vendors license the technology. But, this should increase the QTY sold, and REDUCE prices. If anything they went up. Get rid of that expensive and heavy linear supply and what? The price stays the same or goes up?