Propeller Head Plaza

RE: Only heard 2 "digital" amps so far...

196.3.50.254

In Reply to: RE: Only heard 2 "digital" amps so far... posted by bjh on February 13, 2008 at 13:37:52

I have owned two:
The PS Audio HCA-2, which while not dreadful is all wrong at the high freuqencies but was still a great bass amp (it outperformed a Krell KSA 250 on a pair of Apogee Grand subwoofers) and a pair of Spectral Audio (not the US company a now defunct Swiss company) Class D monos, which sounded smooth and dynamic but very dry and stripped down in the mids and highs...again great bass though. Both had large linear power supplies. Still, neither amp had that harsh electronic signature of mediocre SS amps. Neither was as good as the better Class A or AB SS amps though and nowhere close to the best hybrid and tube designs I have heard.

I have heard these Putzeys designed Hypex modules and frankly they suck. I recently heard them attached to a pair of Apogee Scintillas, which are known for deep soundstage and holographic imaging. Not with Hypex modules!! All that was gone. The other time I heard them driving the midbass panels on a pair of Apogee Full-Ranges in Holland. Well the sound was overdamped and a bit cold but it wasn't just the hypex modules to blame this time. Still they did nothing to help the sound IMO.

I have also heard numerous ICE module configurations (like jeff rowland uses...including the JRs about 4 times now) and they stink too. I have heard them with big linear supplies and with switching supplies and it makes little to no difference.

Oh and I have heard the TACT Millenium, which is better than most of the others, the Lyngdorf (successor to TACT), which sounded sharp and annoying and the Sharp SX100, which is the best of the bunch by a long way and almost livable for me (it is also built on a whole other planet in comparison as well).

The ONLY one that I heard that had some harmonic correctness was the Sharp but at $20,000 it had better deliver something. It even had an ultra expensive Alps brass cased pot (cost like 300 euro just for this pot!). It also accepted DSD streams direct so it was a true "digital" amp (like the TACT with its equibit). Still, it was no match for the Sphinx hybrid I had before, which in turn was no match for the KR audio amps I have now. The other Class D amps I have heard are several steps below this.

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