Oh how I wish Class D amps ...

Athmasphere,

Thank you, thank, thank you for explanation !!!

This is EXACTLY the same philosophy of use Spectron in fully balanced configuration: cancelation of all distortions: even, odd, blue and read !!!

Per Simon Thacher of Spectron the KEY lies in the part quality - pure and simple.

Simon also is saying, and I am not sure if you will agree with him, that if we cancel distortions or actually greatly diminish them then the SOURCE of distortion is immaterial: it could be tube amp or transistor amp or class A or class WYZ - whatever; distortions are gone and so specific sonic characteristics of these amps also greatly diminished... and indeed, balanced monoblock Spectrons sound almost as good as Joule-Electra, I am in love with..

Incidently, Joule-Electra pre- and power amps may or may not have balanced input and/or output but internal processing is balanced ALSO (they use phase splitter).

Thank you again - I saw different pieces but could not put them together....

Dob and Athmasphere, your amps sound clean. So do the others. I have used a number of AB amps, and though the builder of such amps will say they have canceled out all distortion, they don't hold a candle to the clarity my ICE amps have.

I found this interesting quote muttered by John Atkinson:

"It's not that they (class D) measure badly, it's because I have to be extremely careful to ensure that I don't end up measuring my test equipment's limitations."

Oh, now that is quite a telling confession.

"... they don't hold a candle to the clarity my ICE amps have. "

I am sure you are absolutely correct. No one in his right mind would challange your assessment of your own amplifiers.

Athmasphere was just helping me understand why the best tube amps have near zero distortions level. The same philosophy (approach), he described is that of many other companies. I mentioned Spectron statement that based on PUBLISHED measurments distortions are...distortion are...distortions and bad for you...even pleasant for ears as even-order harmonics or ear-piercing odd-order ones.

It has nothing to do with fantastic qulaity of yours and everybody else amplifiers. Somebody mentioned above that sound quality is a function of many parameters and distortions (type and amount) is only one of them. Nothing more.

Peace.

Dob, interesting. I thought Atmasphere was suggesting that balanced amps have near zero distortion levels.

"I thought Atmasphere was suggesting that balanced amps have near zero distortion levels. "

yes, but in comparison to the same amplifier configured in the single ended mode...

Also Atmasphere, in other posts, postulated that good sounding amplifier should have no or minimum of odd order harmonics as compared that to the even order ones in the same amplifier, of course.