Darth Vader
From the Dark Side
Indeed. I had a Sinclair Class D 10w amp in 1964! Small output trannies indeed.
Cheers,
DV
Class D Amps - will they be the future.
- Thread starter Cereal Killer
- Start date
Indeed. I had a Sinclair Class D 10w amp in 1964! Small output trannies indeed.
Cheers,
DV
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
After all the promotional hype along with dodgy SQ of early designs I have to say I'm very impressed and have now bought in after being deterred by the above. I've never heard amps before that don't change their character even when you turn the wick right up, instead they just keep pouring on the power. It's scarey.
Joe Hutch
Mate of the bloke
What have you got?
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
Chapter stuff, both integrated and power amps.
Joe Hutch
Mate of the bloke
Ta. I'm mulling over where to go wrt amplification and want to avoid chucking money around to little or no effect.
I recently borrowed a Primare A34.2 power amp for a week. M-DAC XLR into Primare feeding Totem Arro's 4Ohm nominal impedance. The fully balanced design is Primare's own & doesn't rely on others' boards.
The most striking aspect of the sound was the sheer level of quite natural sounding detail. With classical music for instance, individual instruments stood out, one had a better sense of an orchestra stread out beyond the speakers & I found myself looking above the Arros to follow parts of the music. Bass was amazingly tight but not promenant like some amps - just there when needed & with great definition. Focals sounded good, some may find the audible intake of breath disconcerting I suppose. The treble region sounded detailed with no hint of either grain nor attenuation. Rock, pop, dance music etc sounded equally good.
The amp was sealed & got slightly warm. I couldn't afford the £2100 but would buy one if I could afford to do so.
My conclusion is that class D amps can better class A/B with ease & equal class A for lack of distortion - one thing I noticed when returning to my Restek Challenger was that cross-over distortion. The Restek is still one hell of an amp.
The most striking aspect of the sound was the sheer level of quite natural sounding detail. With classical music for instance, individual instruments stood out, one had a better sense of an orchestra stread out beyond the speakers & I found myself looking above the Arros to follow parts of the music. Bass was amazingly tight but not promenant like some amps - just there when needed & with great definition. Focals sounded good, some may find the audible intake of breath disconcerting I suppose. The treble region sounded detailed with no hint of either grain nor attenuation. Rock, pop, dance music etc sounded equally good.
The amp was sealed & got slightly warm. I couldn't afford the £2100 but would buy one if I could afford to do so.
My conclusion is that class D amps can better class A/B with ease & equal class A for lack of distortion - one thing I noticed when returning to my Restek Challenger was that cross-over distortion. The Restek is still one hell of an amp.
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
Yes, for me the surprise was how grainless and transparent the sound was, only lacking the treble air you can get from a good valve amp for example. It's also mildly hilarious when you look inside and see all that power is coming out of a module the size of a cigarette packet.
How on Earth can those two statements coexist? Crossover distortion has been effectively off the agenda for the last twenty years, hence my inability to reconcile "one hell of an amp" exhibiting the phenomenon.
The company making that unit must have done some significant R'n'D to bring back a fault that the technology buried around 1985.
The Restek sounded distorted by comparison - saying it was Xover was perhaps ill-advised. Although I have a great deal of respect for objectivity, I don't subcribe to the mantra of "if it measures the same, it MUST sound the same!"
If it helps, see my seemly contradictory comments as noting how clean & artefact-free class D amps can sound.
Fair enough - crossover distortion has been a long way below many other distortion products for quite a while that assessing its significance - without confusion from those other products, is a challenge.
Incidentally, I have no doubt that Class D will ultimately win through, for green reasons if nothing else. At that point, people will hanker after the natural, organic and musical sound of linear transistors
Fair enough - crossover distortion has been a long way below many other distortion products for quite a while that assessing its significance - without confusion from those other products, is a challenge.
Incidentally, I have no doubt that Class D will ultimately win through, for green reasons if nothing else. At that point, people will hanker after the natural, organic and musical sound of linear transistors
Although I'm sure you'll think it a red herring, many will liken the sound of a good class D to class A without the room heating! I have no doubt that class A/B amps will slowly but surely be superceded (even without help from legislation). Copper isn't cheap, extruding aluminium for heatsinks isn't cheap but anything that can keep dust away from electronics is a good idea.
What will be interesting is the long-term reliability. I can picure the sorts of failures as being one or both channels failing completely & replaced fuses continuing to blow. Switch mode supplies rarely fail gracefully but like to take out PCB tracks & pop electrolytic caps. Other challenges will be keeping both dead-time & shoot-through low throughout their life.
Disbeliever
pfm Member
I find Bel Canto Class D amplifiers unlistenable
davidavdavid
davidavdavid
thanks Disbeliever, with that information re: BelCanto, you won't be stopping by here any time soon, over and out
wirbeltier
pfm Member
Unlistenable is a bit strong, but I honestly hope they are not the last word in Class D...
Disbeliever
pfm Member
thanks Disbeliever, with that information re: BelCanto, you won't be stopping by here any time soon, over and out
Bel Canto S500 unlistenable for me. Even outside the listening room it has unnatural unrelenting sound that made me want to immediately turn it off.
darrenyeats
pfm Member
From http://theaudiocritic.com/plog/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=6&blogId=1
"As for amplifier topologies, the sensible answer is, “Who cares?” Any amplifier, regardless of topology, can be treated as a “black box” for the purpose of listening comparisons. If amplifiers A and B both have flat frequency response, low noise floor, reasonably low distortion, high input impedance, low output impedance, and are not clipped, they will be indistinguishable in sound at matched levels no matter what’s inside them. Of course, some of the new “alphabet soup” topologies do not necessarily satisfy those conditions."
Darren
"As for amplifier topologies, the sensible answer is, “Who cares?” Any amplifier, regardless of topology, can be treated as a “black box” for the purpose of listening comparisons. If amplifiers A and B both have flat frequency response, low noise floor, reasonably low distortion, high input impedance, low output impedance, and are not clipped, they will be indistinguishable in sound at matched levels no matter what’s inside them. Of course, some of the new “alphabet soup” topologies do not necessarily satisfy those conditions."
Darren
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
With hifi I care about what it does and I tend not to give a sh1t how it does it. I have valves, class D, vinyl, digital- and enjoy the lot.
Space is the Place
pfm Member
Why did you buy it then?!
Jonboi
Because Music Matters
My speakers have Class D on the bass, and Class A/B on the mid and treble.
This is HUGELY important to me because:
1) It gives me something to obsess about - I much prefer to listen to the technology that powers my speakers than the music
2) Die hard audiophiles will work themselves into a lather telling me how 'poor' class D is, and lathered up audiophiles are always fun to observe as they go ballistic when you ignore their 'advice'
3) The amplifier combination in an active speaker results in superb sound and music reproduction in a very discrete and beautiful package.
Guess which one of these possible benefits is actually of real world meaning in my life...
JB
This is HUGELY important to me because:
1) It gives me something to obsess about - I much prefer to listen to the technology that powers my speakers than the music
2) Die hard audiophiles will work themselves into a lather telling me how 'poor' class D is, and lathered up audiophiles are always fun to observe as they go ballistic when you ignore their 'advice'
3) The amplifier combination in an active speaker results in superb sound and music reproduction in a very discrete and beautiful package.
Guess which one of these possible benefits is actually of real world meaning in my life...
JB