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only a few years ago I remember reading raving reviews of Tripath (marketing term class-T) amplifiers, with the words something like 'it sounds like neither solid or tubed'). More forward a few years. Here is another review: "I've thought I've liked Tripath, but after listening IcePower xxx brand, I've realized what a piece of kaka that Tripath-based amplifier was". OK. Let's move forward a bit. Another quote: "I've thought I've liked IcePower based amplifiers but after listening NuForce class D amps, I've realized that those are Nuforce amps I like the most'.So what's going on. I think, class D technology is still in a state of flux and it is slowly reaching the maturity but not quite there yet. Granted, PWM is nothing trivial to accmplish. Chopping the analog signal into pieces at the very high frequency does take some engineering ingenuity. In addition seems like there is a host of other problems class D amplifier has to deal with, like implementing a feedback. IcePower did something in this respect, and apparently NuForce did something different. or Hypex-based amps.
So this is my two cents opinion: "Neither solid nor tubed" as I understand simply means the class D amp under review still distorts the sound, yet because those distortions are something radically different, not the kind of distortions we got used to when we listen either solid state or tubes, that the reviewers fail to identify them as distortions. Till they become familiar with the next, improved version of class D type amp. And it goes on and on. Certainly there is a progress, and yet I'm looking forward reading the review *without* this catch phrase "It sounds neither solid nor tubed".
(Footnote: by 'reading the review' I don't mean reading the review in Stereophile of some $150,000 class D amplifier and having Stereophile reviewers so impressed that they assign it class A+++.)
Follow Ups:
Man, do I disagree with you. I have ARC300.2 and it can hold its own with ICEPOWER Jeff Rowlands which are great amps. The issue is how much work has been done to the amps. I suggest you hear the better class T and D amps and compare them to other amps at their pricepoints. Trouble is I have to use the stove now to make my eggs.
I have a Spectron digital Class D amp. It is extremely good. It is coupled with B&W 803 speakers which turn out to be ludicrously difficult to drive, actually much worse than the specs would indicate. Without enough power the B&W speakers exhibit a strange clipping where the sound just gets muddled. The Class D amp provides oodles (technical term) of power, 500W into 8 ohms and stable down to .2 ohms and this allows the B&W to sing. Von Schweikert has used the Spectron amps to voice his VR4 speaker line an feels he has never heard a better amp. In my case, it has worked extremely well. It has a special synergy with the B&W speakers, and I tried tons of amps before settling on it including a MF Kw500 that I owned for a while. In terms of sound it is very clean and undistorted and very fast. It does not sound like a tube amp or a solid state amp, but really is fairly transparent. The only drawback is that on acoustic instruments the attack and delay of say a guitar is not quite right. It gets the attack, but the decay is cut off and a little abrupt. Difficult to hear though. This is not an ad for Spectron. From what I have heard many of the other digital amps sound as good, and should be demoed in your system to see if there is sysnergy. There might not be for everyone's setup. It is a great technology, super effecient, runs cool, draws little power and sounds great. I had a very serious BIAS against a digital switching amp but hearing it changed my mind.
and it's an impressive offering at their price, $1600 per monoblock pair. Can't really think of anything tubed or SS that will have same quality at that MSRP. Is it the "best" amplifier or technology? Probably not, but their approach is just as valid as any other, and they are sufficiently colorless so that a high-performance system can be built around them without the amps being the limiting factor.
We all know how rapidly things change in the digital world. You may even improve a class D with a firmware upgrade. Try that with a tube amp.The key question is whether a class D amp sounds better to you when comparing to a similarly priced tube or solid state amp. And then, rest assured that a cheaper and better class D amp will come out the day after you pick up yours.
class D amplifier is not = digital amplifier. The circuits are analog. At least class D which implies PWM. This is the progress in analog circuitry which class D amplifiers depend on. PWM doesn't deal with 0s and 1s, you know. In fact, the best class D solutions always use some kind of feedback, which is the analog technique to start with.
Well, lets be fair here. How often have you seen someone say the same thing about *any* component? The vast majority of 'reviews' I've seen include almost the same verbiage - "I've been using XYZ which I thought was great, but the new ABC simply embarasses it.....".The other thing is that a large segment of the 'audiophile' population is drive by change (although I suspect they won't admit it). New is good, as it is different from what they have and thus presents a different perspective than the one that they've gotten used to (and presumably a bit tired of). Not surprisingly, these are going to be among the first folks that jump on a new trend, and then of course among the first to jump ship.
Audio is fully of hyperbole - both when something is discovered, as well as when it's discarded. Somehow feeling that this says something about Class D amps in particular strikes me as a case of selective vision.
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There's a lot of truth to what you just said!
bill
pounding the hell out of subwoofers in cars...Weren't they thought to be too noisy for higher frequency use?
fc
Where have you been? There are at least a few dozen class d amp makers that are producing very decent 'audiophile' amps that compete directly with more traditional designs. And we're not simply talking subwoofer amps.
under a rock apparently :0I am however, aware the of benifits of class D efficiency..I would be interested in hearing one for sure.
fc
Right now, there's no other layman's way to describe it. Give it time.
"Certainly there is a progress, and yet I'm looking forward reading the review *without* this catch phrase "It sounds neither solid nor tubed"."Why? Must there be only two characteristic amplifier sounds? If they say a particular class d amp sounds like tubes will that make you happy and will that make the amp any better?
something like this: "This amplifier doesn't add any additional 'sound signature' to the recording". Because now even if the class D amp sound 'neither solid nor tubed', it still introduces some kind of distortions which some of the reviewers for the lack of better words describe as 'tube-like'.
From what I'm reading so far, you don't much care for class d or tubes.What distortions are you talking about? I had a class d amp and didn't hear any class d specific distortions that you are alluding to. Have you listened to many class d amps lately?
thanks for the feedback. Which class D amp do you have anyway? I haven't heard any lately, but I did hear some good words about nuforce, Rick Schultz from tweakaudio even offers some extra tweaks, and also CIA has hypex-board-based class D amp, some folks at audiogon liked it a lot, there are some reviews coming.I'm interested in something fairly transparent, like BVAudio intergrated amp, but of course I would consider class D if the price tag is lower and the level of transparency is about the same.
I owned the PS Audio HCA-2 and auditioned the Audio Research 300.1. The HCA-2 was smooth but not as transparent as I'd like and not as extended in the treble. The ARC 300.1 was much more to my liking.
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