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In Reply to: RE: Total disconnect between price and quality posted by ruxtonvet on April 14, 2015 at 11:34:32
By quality I assume you mean performance.
I suspect you're fairly ignorant of Class D amp's potential performance. Perhaps you should try auditioning a few. Like Class A, A/B, etc, Class D amp performance can be all over the board performance-wise. But the potential is certainly there with some and the actual is certainly there with some others.
Two things to bear in mind with Class D in general.
1) Some Class D amps have the potential to be more revealing than other amp types. Since a more revealing product does not discriminate between that which it reveals, with potentially more music being revealed so too is more distortion being revealed. Hence, Class D amps best chance at higher levels of musicality occur when the owner has taken extra steps to minimize distortions elsewhere in the system.
For example, for a while I owned the Nuforce amps and even sold them out of the house to fund my R&D project. Anybody who auditioned the nuforce amps without proper line conditioning in place thought the amps were too dry harsh, overly bright, and fatiguing and most returned them. But those who employed proper line conditioning fell in love with their superior levels of musicality. I remember installing a new pair of nuforce amps at a friend's house who also had about $4000 of active PS Audio line conditioners for his source and amp components. The amps were not burned in but we're listening to them for about 20 minutes and I just couldn't take it any more so I asked if we could listen without the PS Audio line conditioners. He removed the PS audio LC's and we both noticed an immediate improvement. I ran home and brought back my vastly superior Foundation Research line conditioners and needless to say he purchased 3 Foundation Research line conditioners. Most line conditioners are not worth owning but I digress.
2) Because they are usually so much lighter in weight, Class D amps are generally more susceptible to air-borne and internally-generated vibrations. A feather is more easily excited by vibrations than a block of concrete. Hence, mass loading the Class D amps and securing them to their shelves can go a long way performance-wise.
As for Rowland's Class D amp at $10k, well Rowland products usually are performance-oriented and Rowland also dives into the bling bling side of things. As a result of that combo, his potential customer base is usually geared toward those with a few extra dollars in their pocket who like a little bling bling to go with whatever performance they think they're getting. Nothing wrong with that.
As for your comment about being encouraged to hear that Class D amps can be made to sound acceptable, you give yourself away that you haven't a clue what a superior Class D amp is capable of performance-wise.
In 2006, my pride and joy was a 100 lbs. McCormack DNA-2 Rev A amp custom rebuilt by McCormack. A distributor friend in Canada who was quite familiar with my amp, said he was sending me a pair of amps to try that weighed only 7 lbs. each. I would have said no immediately but because of his knowledge and experience, I reluctantly said I would audition them. When they arrived in a small single box I thought what a joke. But after install, they were clearly more refined, more musical, and even more dynamic though they were only 160wpc compared to the DNA-2 Rev A's 300 wpc and my speakers were 86db efficiency and I often listened at that time around 96 - 104 db. Within 1 week the DNA-2 was up for sale.
More recently, I replaced my highly rated BMC C1 int. amp retailing for $8k with an ugly-duckling pair of Wyred-4-Souncd SX-1000 Class D mono blocks retailing for $2400 a pair. Significant musical improvement. Moreover, since I dabble with extreme forms of vibration control, I did something externally the W4S amps that so greatly improved the W4S' performance, the BMC C1 amp sounded more like a $50 receiver from BestBuy in comparison. And the BMC amp was clearly superior to my previous Nuforce amps.
I see no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Follow Ups:
Interesting that you love your Wyred SX-1000 monoblocks. I sold my SX-500 monoblocks after owning them for just a few months. Though somewhat improved over another pair of ICEpower amps I had, they were not quite "there" compared to some quality Class AB SS amps I've owned or even a couple modest tube amps.My issue is mostly with the bass. Yup, that's right, an area where we would expect Class D to shine since so many subwoofers use Class D technology.
ICEpower bass is present and strong but a little ill defined IMHO, not very detailed, unable to clearly separate the deepest bass notes (think upright bass as an example). Even my tube amps have done better in this regard. Go figure.
It is encouraging to read and maybe hear that class D can be made to sound acceptable but what is the point if the price is the same as class A-B or A?
The OP makes an excellent point above. I've been saying the same thing for a while now.... and I've gone through several Class D amps over the years. Still waiting.
Edits: 04/14/15 04/14/15
"My issue is mostly with the bass. Yup, that's right, an area where we would expect Class D to shine since so many subwoofers use Class D technology."
I'd suspect problems in the reconstruction filter, especially inductor saturation or capacitor heating. Sub-woofers are likely much more forgiving of time-domain smearing than a full-range implementation.
Regards, Rick
AbeI'm not sure where or how class-D got their rep for bass, i have never heard one that excelled in the bass dept, the Devialet are the only ones i have ever heard that had no nasties in the top, but it did not drive like a good A/AB in the bass and it is by far the best i have ever heard from the genre.
regards..
Edits: 04/15/15
My TACT 2150 (?) blew away the bass on my zillion watt Roger Saunders designed Innerforce amp
I found NuForce to have excellent bass but lacked in other areas. At least NuForce designs their own Class D amps and doesn't rely on OEM modules. I haven't been that pleased with the Hypex and ICEpower based amps that I have owned.
Class D designs are often used in subwoofers where bass is the goal so it surprised me a bit that I wasn't thrilled with the bass from most of my Class D amps.
Many manufacturers of DAC's use off the shelf chips. Yet all these DAC's sound different.
Good point, and most of those DACs sound excellent. I haven't found that to be the case with Class D amps. But that's just my limited experience with Class D in the $2000 - $3000 range. I'm not willing to spend big bucks on Class D when there are proven (to me) better choices in traditional designs.
Hi, Abe.
In my case, the bass of the W4S SX-1000 amps is easily superior to the BMC's which handled matters quite sufficiently.
And in the case of my 160 wpc nuforce amps, they easily excelled over the powerful McCormack DNA-2 Rev A amp at 300wpc which was by no means a slouch in that region. In fact, in that room and with those full-range 86db inefficient speakers, I had the the most musical, well-defined, tight, and tuneful bass I've ever encountered.
In my current room, sized like a shoebox, in the past 7 years I've never been able to quite replicate that but I've come close.
IME, an extremely well-defined, tight, and musical bass, which is perhaps near impossible to achieve, has as much do to with superior cabling and speaker placement, as it does with superior amplification.
In fact, if I were given mediocre cables, amps, and speaker placement, and my only goal was obtain superior bass reproduction and I could only select an improvement from 1 of those 3 categories, hands down I would choose improved speaker placement.
At the moment, with some fabulously musical new (older) VMPS RM40 speakers I acquired last summer, the bass is as good as I could hope for, except not quite as deep as my previous speakers.
In fact, tonight for the first time since install I just tried moving the the speakers to see if I could gain 4 or 5Hz in the 22-26Hz range. I might have gained 1Hz but essentially no-go. So now I'll be spending the next 9 months off and on trying out some new placement locations to see if I can dial in these 240 lbs. monoliths for max range.
ICEPower is the generic board and technology coming from B&O and each mtg'er has the opportunity to build around it as they see fit. In other words, I wouldn't necessarily condemn all ICEPower technology for their bass reproduction simply because one mtg'er's execution didn't suit your fancy.
Same thing with assuming that since Class D amps are used in subwoofers, therefore, you should expect similar bass response from your speakers with Class D.
First many subwoofers aren't worth owning. Period. Second, proper cabling and placement matter as much or more to subwoofers as they do to full-range speakers. Moreover, I have to assume there's plenty of inferior, no-name, or cheap Class D amps used for subwoofer applications.
IOW, I think many subwoofers performance is so highly questionable, the last thing I'd want to do is assume other Class D amps should be able to make my speakers perform likewise. :)
This thread is showing sides of life again and I just read your views on the topic. My system is similar to yours in design, but shares no components. I have been running a pair of D-Sonic 600w amps for more than two years as a retirement-budget experiment to replace a pair of Atma-sphere 100w OTLs that I had bought 20 years earlier. Like you, clean, solid, extended bass is a priority. I ran Snell B-types from 1992 until this Spring when I bought a used pair of Genesis 6.1 towers that have about the same footprint as yours, but they weigh about 100# less. These speakers set off a major system upgrade project that involved swapping the locations for the 2-channel and HT systems. My wife got her pound of flesh with all new carpet, paint, furniture, etc. but I got the long wall, a few new cables, some old tubes, and a new Steve Blinn Super-Wide rack. With so many changes, I expect it will take me at least a year to get the speakers setup properly. So far, I have imaging and soundstaging at a level I would call hypnotic, and have set my focus on the bass side of things.
You are probably wondering what this has to do with your post and will he ever get to the point. Your comment about dialing in your monstrous speakers rings my bell because that is exactly what my problem is with mine. I now have my Genesis towers fitted with Soundocity outriggers with brass cones that are adjustable in height using a knurled knob above each point. The speakers came with no provision for footer - not even threaded holes. The only surface feature on the otherwise flat bottoms is a rectangular 1" wide picture frame 1" inside the edges. The outriggers make a dangerously unbalanced tall speaker almost rock-solid through the carpet, but making location adjustments required dancing the now-spiked speakers while balancing on on 1 point ... you probably know the drill. I even broke one of the points doing off. Improvements in bass was so pronounced with the outriggers that I had to keep them - at least until I found something better. But, they made for a true nightmare for moving the speakers in the hunt for better sound.
While researching speaker/room/setup topics, I ended up at Herbie's on-line store and found a very good solution: Fat Gliders. These are a 3-layer laminated puck about 2" diameter. The bottom is convex-curved and makes it function as a glider like people put under heavy furniture to move it while vacuuming. The center layer is Herbie's proprietary acoustic material and is hollowed out in the top-center to allow the fitting of a coupling disc that has been drilled deep enough to allow the point of a cone. They actually work as both gliders and improve the bass clarity and extension mare than just cones. I can now make even tiny changes to location easily and in seconds.
If you are concerned that your much heavier speakers, that's the reason I mentioned my new rack. I ordered another set of the gliders before building the rack. I wanted to place the rack at least 15" from the wall behind it to allow access to everything because I know that I will be doing a lot of experimenting with footers, cables, etc. but eventually want to move it out of the middle of the room. I decided to test how much weight they could take by trying to move the rack on gliders several times as I added more components and platforms. The empty rack weighs 220# and could be pushed around the room as easily as pushing a shopping cart at the grocery. The rack moved easily and smoothly until I had more than five hundred pounds, but I now needed to move it in steps, one end then the other with a bit of lift applied to the end support. Fully loaded, the rack tops out at about 625#. At this weight, the gliders are still useful for making small incremental movement, but I will certainly unload at least a hundred pounds before traveling more than a couple of inches.
You are spot-on about cabling and set-up being the key to getting the best out of class d amps. My D-Sonics are very revealing of everything else in the chain. Mine are completely at home in a system where the speakers they drive originally cost 5x as much and the phono side (including cables, platforms, footers and a phono stage) was 12x.
Everything is going to the dogs
stehno-
where does Primare gear stand?
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