Has anyone tried an amp from Class D Audio?

Tonyangel,

I would advise you to get the more powerful SDS-440 or SDS-470 amp. The 440 ($630) is 220 watts @ 8 ohms, which is in the middle of your spkr's recommended power of 100-300 watts. The 470($695) is 300 watts @ 8 ohms, which is at the top of the range. Either of these amps, combined with your Marsh solid-state preamp, would give you an accurate and neutral quality. which is what you said you like. Your spkrs are small but somewhat inefficient at 88.5 db at 1 watt input. I think having extra power (over your Aragon's 100 watts) would result in an effortless and relaxed presentation with plenty of headroom.

Personally, this combo would probably be too neutral and accurate for my taste, but it may fit your taste quite well. If you do feel it's a bit too neutral and accurate, you might want to switch to a tube preamp.

An alternative, if it's within your budget, is the Bella Musica Ibrido hybrid amp at $1,895. I've never heard this amp but it looks very interesting. It pairs a tubed input stage with a class D amplifier which should result in a smoother presentation but the power is lower at 125 watts/channel. I believe this amp uses the ClassD Audio amp module. You can read about the amp at http://responseaudiony.com/products.htm.

I'm sorry if this adds confusion to your decision, but I just discovered this amp online tonight.

Good luck,
Tim

Tim,

Thanks for the advise. I suppose that going for the more powerful amp would make sense. The main reason that I'm looking for a neutral amp is that I think I really like the sound of the Marsh Pre.

After the upgrade from my previous NAD pre, I think that I can characterize the sound of the March as not exactly tubey, but it does have tube like qualities that I've found I really like.

Although I would one day like to get into tubes, now is not the time. I do not have the space to accommodate tube equipment.

Tonyangel,

Excellent, from all you've said, I think a CDA amp is going to give you what you want. I definitely improved my system going class D instead of my old, but still quite good, Aragon amp. I think you'll also like the smaller size, weight and cooler running of the CDA amp.

Good luck and happy listening,
Tim

Mapman, not trying to get into a p---ing contest, but my system was pretty consistent at the time I auditioned various amps. Rather than read all the reviews and comments here, and then wondering if "I might be missing out on something" ... I found the only way to quell that feeling was to get 'em in for a listen. That was just the Class D amps. It took a while and there was overlap so I could do some A/B-ing. My wife really got a kick out of watching me go through my audio hobby/obsession. Now to your question re: Bel Canto - they were the M300's. As stated earlier, once I decided on the CI D-200's, they became the reference.

I went through similar comparisons to settle on digital front end ... owning/auditioning various models of CDP's and DAC's until I found a combination to settle on for a while. Same thing with speaker cables,PCs, etc. I try to focus on one element or one component at a time. Right now, I am fairly happy with things the way they are.

Sure, I may offer an opinion from time to time, but always with the caveat that it's what I like in my system and to my ears it sounds good. Would you like it? Frankly I don't know. But isn't experimentation, tuning and personalizing our own sound a big part of this hobby?

Has anyone else received their amp lately and have any comments on it?