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

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?

FWIW, I thought the Bel Canto REF1000Ms did well in its price bracket. I compared it to Bryston Class AB gear that cost a bit more and it was not a clear win. The BC had superb bass control while the Bryston had a full midrange. I found that using an ARC tube preamp (Ref5) put the balance strongly in the Bel Canto side.

I only found a decent upgrade over the BC by going with an Electrocompaniet Nemo or Plinius SA-Reference that was well over 2x the price of the Bel Canto

Pricing out of reach? A great deal has changed and it's changing rapidly.

One of the best sounding switching amplifiers, the Hypex nCore 400 sells for less than $1200 a pair in a simple to assemble kit form.

The switching module and the power supply are in house Hypex manufactured. Or you can spend 10K for the assembled and more powerful Mola-Mola in nice casework.

The affordable Channel Island line is using the Hypex uCd modules as is Rouge in their hybrid. Higher end Devialet and MBL are selling their own in house switching designs. Many of the older marks such as Rowland, PS Audio, NuForce, Spectron, and others have been steadily upgrading.

The very large Harmon/Levinson mono's are a whopping $53k but their build looks very expensive.

At this point the ICE modules being used are extremely modified. The off the shelf products have been surpassed in quality some time ago.

That's a wide spectrum of quit new class D designs with one of the best sounding examples at a very affordable price.

Two products aren't a market. I listened to the Devialet unit and it was indeed very open and precise, but with a restricted sound stage. When the music opens up, it didn't. The MOON A/B unit was tremendously more dynamic and thus, much more musical, not to mention much richer in texture.

A/B amps have been around since 1967, almost 45 years, and are still improving. I really haven't seen class D get where it needs to be in the last two years. Better, yes.

I think that they can match the needs of low to mid full-range applications in performance most successfully but are still not as consistent as a high-end analog power supply at getting clean Vcc DC voltage to the AC signal path. Restricted to low frequencies in matched systems (powered subs) where they work best is a good audio nich.

My biggest complaint is the poorly market indexed pricing. Again, one or two products isn't the market, and one's that are pretty esoteric at that. The average Joe or Jane won't even register that the Hypex nCore 400 kit even exists.

Clear winners in sound? No, everyone will determine the sound that they enjoy. There will never be a winner there. I don't like the Plinius SA-103 at all for instance, but it is a good amp for a lot of people. So SOUND is NOT my point, base material cost / pass through mark-up is. Most class D amplifiers exist to substantially pad the pockets of the manufacturer's and dealers. Especially now, realistic pricing is needed to pull people into the hobby.

The plethora of class D amps is changing as manufacturers try to ride the excessive mark-up wave much more than true design improvements. Adding a few caps here or there to a D-class power supply (maybe $300.00 in parts at best) and pricing a unit at $2,000.00 is close to the 5X parts to sell ratio. $8,000.00 for a Bel Canto REF1000M II series is suspect.

Be careful out there.

Do listen to NCore if you have a chance...

You are correct, though. $1800 for the NC400 pair and $9000+ for the OEM-only NC1200 version is too bad. I would like to know what Hypex is charging OEMs for the NC1200 module.