Adjusting for inflation the facts are correct. The sources are listed for your reference. I listened to the Devialet and this thing goes for 15K. SOUND isn't the "main" issue (although such HUGE variations in opinions of the same amp should give you pause!). My opinion, which most should care less about, is that the mids were great, but the bass and treble were pushed back. The imaging was one size too small compared to AB amplifiers, but very precise. It was a usable performance, but not to the level I'm after.
Few vendors (ANTHEM being one) can design, build, and absorb the R&D costs to market a class D pulse supply with the majority licenses a major market block and add little else. And, making one isn't the solution. It has to be good. Few engineers really understand CLASS D like they will going forward. We went to the moon, but we made a ton of mistakes along the way.
I'd love to think that in just two years a totally new technology with tremendously varied negative attributes relative to linear amps could be oh so perfect in such few design attempts. This isn't TV, we all aren't 28 year old geniuses.
I find it curious that people can decide their choices are perfection only to dump them a year or two later. Prior to the abandonment of their old technology, anybody that made comment towards it's merits on price or performance is a "blowhard". Ya, we'll learn a lot thinking like that.
The market will take from you what you allow. Get educated.
The pursuit of CLASS D amps is to achieve superior size, weight, and cost advantages over the same linear parts. It is MUCH more electrically complex, however. That complexity has been mitigated over a wide audience (for audio anyway) to leverage the R&D costs across a larger universe of users. But, the cost advantage has been absorbed by the manufacturers at this point, and not passed on to the consumer. The designs are better, but the lessons are still pages deep on this technology.
I would wait a few more years before I plunked down 8K for a CLASS D amp for hi-end audio. My opinion, lightly blown in your direction.
