Oh how I wish Class D amps ...

" ...the bar that has to be met by class D is not how they compare to traditional transistor designs but (especially on SoundLabs) how well they compare to tube amplification. "

Hello Athmaspere. I don't like to put all amps together into single group as "class D" and even more tube amps.

I mentioned in my post Spectrons and Wayne Donnelly, reviewer from Enjoy The Music, sent back his $50k VTL Zigfrieds (spl) when he got his Spectron. I also much prefer Spectron over my former amp, McIntosh 2202 etc

On other hand, I truly love OTLs - your and that of Jud Barber of Joule-Electra but I can't stand their heat and high maintanence. Moreover, only you know how well your amps can drive Soundlab (I suspect very well) but 100% they cannot drive my Sasha by Wilson and provide the same dynamic range as Spectron does - Sashas are the most power hungry speakers in entire David Wilson line.

Mike

Mike do you think Ralph's MA2 or MA3 could drive those speakers?

I've owned several variants of TA2024 including Trends 10.1, a few TA2020 amps from Muse, Topping, etc, and currently use a LM1875 from Brian Bell (chipamp_dot_com.)

This last one is a pure gainclone, minimalistic, very few parts. The best 20wpc I've ever heard from solid state, and better in most ways than many single-ended triode and pentode 6BQ5 amps. I've owned Almarro, Decware copies, rebuilt vintage SEs by Magnavox, Motorola, Zenith, some killer DIY 6bq5 SE using a chip voltage regulator and tube rectifier, and lots more. I've also owned many rebuilt vintage tube amps from EICO, Fisher, Scott, Pilot (SA232 is AMAZING) Allied (6BM8), Conn Organ (6L6), Harman Kardon, etc. I've owned solid-state by Belles, Van Alstine, Nelson Pass, Dynaco and much more. Pair a well-designed class-d with good speakers from Tang Band, Fostex, Mission, etc and they are near perfect, IMO. Great amps have been around since the 1940s. I think even a basic run-of-the-mill Class D will out-perform any Mosfet amp at any price. More accurate midrange, better bass, nicer higs, less audible distortion, lower noise floor, better reliability.

We are in the second "golden age" of audio. If your class-d doesn't sound like tubes, add a tube buffer between your passive attenuator and amp. For me, though, musical truth and emotional experience is more important than nostalgia.

" Mike do you think Ralph's MA2 or MA3 could drive those speakers?"

Hello Rlff: I think this question is best to be addressed to Ralph...

Michael_moskowich, Tim Aucremann of The Audio Beat http://www.theaudiobeat.com uses a set of MA-1s (with a set of ZEROs) with Sashas. I myself heard the Sashas on MA-1s at Paul Bolin's home. It didn't seem like the speaker was hard to drive at all! So yes, obviously our bigger amps can drive the speaker too. In fact it seems to me that with a set of M-60s and a set of ZEROs you would have plenty of power with Sashas in most rooms.

Here's an article Tim wrote about the MA-1s, scroll down and you will see the Sashas: http://www.theaudiobeat.com/blog/atma_sphere_ma1_mk31_upgrade.htm

Class D, as you can imagine, has made big inroads in the pro-audio and music world. For example Orange now has a class D bass amp that makes 500 watts. Its small and light! It can't keep up with an all-tube Peavey 400-watt bass head though. The Peavey has more punch and bottom end. Mind you we are comparing apples to oranges in a fashion, because its likely that music amps are not built to the same standards as high end stuff. But I find it interesting (and perhaps no coincidence) that the relationship I have observed between class D and tubes in general seems similar to what I have seen in the music field as well.