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class d.

Had my Primare A34.2 power amp for over 3 yrs - not OEM-based. Also has SM PSUs so no huge torroid to buzz. Fabulous bass control, great detail that's not chromium-plated, treble isn't OTT.
Many N Core-based designs are well thought of, as are Bel Canto.
The cost cut on mine is only the input stage is balanced - so 1 class D section, not 2 per channel.
 
Disbeliever said:
DeVilleEars Of the US manufacturers of Class D amps you mention the only one I have auditioned was from Bel Canto and it was absolute rubbish made me feel ill had to turn it off. Devialet have Class A mixed in with their Class D. B & W who distribute Rotel do not recommend using a Rotel Class D amplifier with their speakers. I do not like the Primare Class D amp or others I have auditioned despite having received good reviews. Class AB still the best for me.
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Absolutely your choice to avoid class D but I find it very difficult to buy the Bel Canto was "absolute rubbish' unless it was broken. Not to your taste, yes - but rubbish? I suspend believe here.

Many people prefer valve amps - do they think transistor amps are rubbish or not to their liking? There's a big difference.
 
ClaireFox said:
Brief factoid. More class D amplifiers have been sold than any other amplifier in the history of electronics. There are at least 1-billion out there in Apple iPhones and that's not counting the billions of D chipsets in other phones too. Class D. 1W. Super-efficient and with great sound quality.

So Disbeliever speaks of "major manufacturers"... what exactly do we mean by that? Niche market suppliers like Linn and Naim who now it is bankrolled by its sugar daddy Focal is finally producing one or two interesting things? If we are going by niche markets with small global penetration then Sonos would be up there as a major manufacturer.

Most people would not tell what class D is if they listened to it next to Class A/B or Class A. An amp is an amp is an amp. A DAC is a DAC is a DAC.

Amps are done for now. Class D won. What really needs to change is transducer tech. All other areas have kept ahead but even Devialet's Phantoms are woefully old tech and Electrostatics and Planar Magnetics are just not really easy to site in a living room. A single transducer array needs to be no more than 8" in any dimension to fill a large room in surround sound. That's going to need serious R&D. It will happen, I am hoping it will do it in my lifetime.
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I was thinking of mobile phones & the irony of some of the previous statements. But many well-considered amplifier manufacturers don't seem to be interested which is probably reflected by the attitude of their customers to some extent. One factor that swung me to class D was efficiency - I refuse to leave equipment powered up because it theoretically sounds marginally better - I despise that idea.
 
ClaireFox said:
Brief factoid. More class D amplifiers have been sold than any other amplifier in the history of electronics. There are at least 1-billion out there in Apple iPhones and that's not counting the billions of D chipsets in other phones too. Class D. 1W. Super-efficient and with great sound quality.

So Disbeliever speaks of "major manufacturers"... what exactly do we mean by that? Niche market suppliers like Linn and Naim who now it is bankrolled by its sugar daddy Focal is finally producing one or two interesting things? If we are going by niche markets with small global penetration then Sonos would be up there as a major manufacturer.

Most people would not tell what class D is if they listened to it next to Class A/B or Class A. An amp is an amp is an amp. A DAC is a DAC is a DAC.

Amps are done for now. Class D won. What really needs to change is transducer tech. All other areas have kept ahead but even Devialet's Phantoms are woefully old tech and Electrostatics and Planar Magnetics are just not really easy to site in a living room. A single transducer array needs to be no more than 8" in any dimension to fill a large room in surround sound. That's going to need serious R&D. It will happen, I am hoping it will do it in my lifetime.
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I am concerned only with High Fidelity amplfiers and the biggest seller is still class AB not Class D
 
Disbeliever said:
I am concerned only with High Fidelity amplfiers and the biggest seller is still class AB not Class D
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I would class many modern smartphones as now being capable of high fidelity. Apple especially are excellent at this. Hugely ironic they pack them with awful earbuds.
 
ClaireFox said:
Circular argument is circular. You haven't really defined what High Fidelity is though, you rant a lot against what you think is not HiFi whilst failing to define what HiFi is.

If you finally get round to doing that we can then find all the flaws in that viewpoint and then tear your argument up into even smaller pieces. Not that your viewpoint really needs that much effort in deconstructing but there is a lot of lazy thinking going on in your posts.

So: High Fidelity Amplifiers. What criteria? High fidelity? As in truth to the source material? An iPhone can do that. Class AB once reigned supreme but is now a niche area because class D has superseded it at all levels.
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According to you a Man is a Man & a Woman is a Woman, absolutely not. As for Iphones I prefer android phones
 
dtd said:
I would class many modern smartphones as now being capable of high fidelity. Apple especially are excellent at this. Hugely ironic they pack them with awful earbuds.
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The ear buds go in the bin but the lack of Apt-X bluetooth profile is inexcusable, especially when considering Apple use the profile in other products
 
Purite Audio said:
You must visit Disbeliever ,I have class D here and Class A/B we can directly compare.
Keith.
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Thanks for the offer but I prefer to judge SQ in my own listening environment my speakers with Classical music. Which Class D amp would you be comparing to an AB amplifier ?
 
the loaf said:
Hello,
Just wondering if anyone has had some positive results with class d amps. I have a pr of naim dbls and am tempted by class d integrateds (used ARC/rowland) or maybe power amps. Currently have valves but want to move to more convenient amps providing they do not sound really awful.
Many Thanks.
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The tonal balance will probably be very different, class D amplifiers have a very high damping factor, which gives a very tight bass, if you like that then they are a good choice, whilst early class D certainly had issues, in a competent design they are well sorted out and capable of giving a sound quality up with the best, whether you like that presentation is another matter!. Valve amplifiers can give a very coloured presentation of the music as well but it's one that I can live with rather than a class AB design which always seem to get on my nerves after a while, going from valves to solid state you may prefer class A or one of the Quad error correcting designs.
 
russel said:
The tonal balance will probably be very different, class D amplifiers have a very high damping factor, which gives a very tight bass, if you like that then they are a good choice, whilst early class D certainly had issues, in a competent design they are well sorted out and capable of giving a sound quality up with the best, whether you like that presentation is another matter!. Valve amplifiers can give a very coloured presentation of the music as well but it's one that I can live with rather than a class AB design which always seem to get on my nerves after a while, going from valves to solid state you may prefer class A or one of the Quad error correcting designs.
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The way Class D amps specify damping factor is very misleadiing. DF should be measured at 40 Hz around 200 is perfectly adequate , not this 1000 nonsense, before buying any amp best to audition with your own speakers.
 
Disbeliever said:
I am concerned only with High Fidelity amplfiers and the biggest seller is still class AB not Class D
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Please clarify your point of reference...

In which geographic market(s)?
In which specific price point(s) of amplifier market(s)?
Please share your definition of "High Fidelity amplifiers"?
Finally, please share your sources on sales volumes?

It is always easy to select a narrow niche where the sales mix in that specific niche match your preconceived ideas, and then to take that specific niche, drop the niche qualifier and to generalise the results.

The same applies to tweaking the definitions to achieve a desired result - politicians have been doing it for years.
 
The Nord One Up is best amp i have yet heard or owned. Ever since i tried Hypex amps 2012 i have been using them. Last years i have been using nCore based amps. I tried to go back to class A/AB, but you can put 10k+ euros on a class A/AB amp and its still just "almost as good" as a good nCore based Hypex amp. I think a good class d amp can be reasonably priced, when it comes to searching for the ultimate sound quality. But i am not saying that they all are...i am not even saying they all sound good to me.

I have tried few different nCore based amps (nc400 diy, Nord, NAD M21, Bel Canto REF600M). They all sound different, because of their different input buffer designs and maybe there is other things too. If there is differences already between using the same class-d amp module, i think the differences can be even greater when the amp module is changed to module from another brand.

There is no "class D sound". Try to forget that. There is no "tube sound" either. Or "class A sound". There are just different sounding amps. Some of them are good and some ok and rest are not for you, maybe they are for someone else. These kind of class wars are just b**shit imo.
 
Disbeliever said:
Thanks for the offer but I prefer to judge SQ in my own listening environment my speakers with Classical music. Which Class D amp would you be comparing to an AB amplifier ?
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We tried three Class D designs , but my preference and the only model we represent are Bruno Putzeys NCore designs.
Keith
 
Non scientific feedback

I had a Belcanto EVO4 with focal 1028. The evo4 was a brilliant piece of kit. Great everything, music, bass ....Stupidly sold the Belcanto and bought acoustic reality monos. They were essentially boxed up ICE amps. I bought the 500 into 8 each side ,as I recall anyway. They were horrible , only slightly rescued by a **** off mains conditioner .
 
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