Oh how I wish Class D amps ...

Unsound, I think he was talking about the input impedance, not the output impedance. I could be wrong, but that is the best I can make out of:

you know how low ICE impedance runs. Solid state preamps have great trouble with this.

But how could there be a solid state preamp that could not drive the low impedance that tubes or a passive can? That part does not make sense. Muralman1, I think you need to restate whatever it was that you were trying to say here.

Atmasphere your question mirrors my thoughts, we're on the same page. :-)

My theory, at least for the better icepower Class D amps out there, is that one may have to have a setup that is capable of doing imaging and soundstage really well in order to appreciate these amps fully.

I have several speakers set up in several rooms running off my system. The Class D amps differentiate themselves best from what I had before in my two better rooms in this regard. In the other two, the differences are nominal, and in my worst room in this regard, one used more for casual background listening with less power hungry speakers, I do not hear any clear improvement with the BCs.

As far as the low input impedance I thought this was mainly true with older Class D amps? For example all the recent Bel Canto and Wyred amps advertise that they change the ICE input circuitry to accomodate a wider range of input impedances. Do you think this is still an issue?

I do agree with the power cable suggestion though. The Class D amps do seem to improve significantly when you clean up the EMI. I used a Signature Lessloss cord for this - it really brings the sound into focus. I found other components could make improvements - but similar in nature to how they would make improvements on a Class A/AB amp.

I still think the sound of the BC 500m seems lacking but perhaps its a question of power - I have low impedance speakers with a long run of speaker cable - so perhaps that was the issue. But then again I had tried them out on my older system that had high impedance speakers with very short cable runs and they definitely didn't sound as good as the Simaudio amp. At high volumes it was close, but at low volumes the Simaudio managed to stay very musical but the BC just compressed badly.

Since then I have switched to the Spectron - was not able to compare it against the older system/Simaudio, but so far from memory it provides a very similar sound to the Simaudio, but with more cleaneliness - so I am very satisfied so far.

DAn9,

What was the rest of the system you tried the Class D amps with?