Maybe someone should send the counterfeit Odin 2 to Ralph and have it evaluated on the amp?
Atma-Sphere Class D… Amazing
Today I picked up my Atma-Sphere Class D Amps. These aren’t broken in yet. And they are simply amazing. I’ve listen to a lot of High End Class D. Some that cost many times what Atma-Sphere Class D costs. I wasn’t a fan of any of them. But these amps are amazing. I really expected to hate them. So my expectations were low. The Details are of what I’ve never heard from any other amps. They are extremely neutral. To say the realism is is extremely good is a gross understatement. They are so transparent it’s scary. These amps just grab you and suck you into the music. After I live with them some and get them broken in. And do some comparisons to some other high end Amps Solid State, Tubes and Class D’s, also in other systems I’ll do a more comprehensive review. But for now, these are simply amazing amps.. Congrats to Ralph and his team. You guys nailed on these.
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It sounds like the cables are better than the amps?🤣 |
In comes the Voyger…..sure @kuribo will tear that thing to shreds. |
My reply today is for anyone who may not be totally impressed with Ralph's GaN amps. I don't have them, but I do own a GaN amp (MSRP $3000) for about a year. I have been powering it with a Chinese counterfeit Odin 2 PC and connected from my dac/pre with a Odin 2 XLR. My transport is a Audiolab 6000 (IMO, it is a much better trans than some say, and likely because of their cable choices) with a fake Odin Gold PC. For a couple months I have been thinking about switching them, which I finally did last night. WOW! Today I am ordering another Odin Gold hth |
First of all I want back the more than 90 minutes of my life I spent reading this thread. And I blame @kuribo for his stalwart refusal to accept that Ralph might have a different design priorities, marketing strategy, and business plan then what he believes to be the correct way all companies should act for his benefit. Also I’d like to give @atmasphere a medal for being so long suffering, patient and informative. Also, @kuribo please don’t read my post because I’m afraid it will probably contain things evil, venal and subjective that would definitely not be worth your time :) I actually slogged through this because I have some decent experience with the products in question and wanted to see the background before I posted. I’ve had in my system probably close to a dozen digital amps, going back 20 years to Spectron, Ice Power Amps, Hypex Module Amps etc.. I’ve also many owned super high end solid state and tube amps. Until I heard the VTV I was never completely happy with the Class D amps, for many of the reason people say: grey/cloudy, flat lacking transparency, and just a boring presentation. I’ve owned a VTV Purifi stereo amp with the SparkOS input buffer for almost 2 years. I also had the Orchard Audio Starkrimson GaN stereo amp for a month evaluation and I’ve had my Atma-Sphere Class Ds now for almost 3 months. The AS Class D significantly betters any digital amp I’ve heard in my system. I really love the VTV amp. For the price (now about $1,400) it is pretty much without peer! The Starkrimson ($2500) was so similar to the VTV in sound if I wasn’t listening carefully I’d not be able to tell them apart. On careful listening though, I felt the Orchard sounded a bit recessed and did not have as much macro slam and dynamics as the VTV. Imaging was further behind the speakers with the Strarkrimson, and things like horns as stuff did not have as much dimensionality. The Orchard has a bit more overall bass energy, but did not have the taughtness/ fastness of the VTV. I am making these differences sound much bigger than they were. These differences though are more to do with what my taste is than big differences in quality. I tend to like more vibrant dynamic presentations. I think the Orchard would probably be an excellent match to a big ballsy sounding rock and roll speaker like some Klipsh etc. The Orchard was just a bit more polite and reticent. Both amps were dead silent, incredibly dynamic and without grain or brightness. And the bass is awesome. They do vocals amazingly well. They have wonderful tone on acoustic instruments, especially with things like woodwinds and brass (the Orchard did those things just a touch better than the VTV). They have a palpable reach out and touch quality to the music that is addictive. Highs are airy and extended. They don’t sound harsh or have any fine grain, or greyness/whiteness, flatness or sound boring. While I wouldn’t say they sound like tubes, there is a clarity to the midrange that reminds me of them. For a $1,400 amp, the VTV Purifi will make many many people happy. The Atma-Sphere Class D amps are in another realm altogether though. Take everything I said about the above two amps and add the following. They are quieter and bring out more detail. The blackness between notes etc is replaced by more acoustic information than I’ve heard on my favorite recordings. They are significantly more transparent which reveals more music information and fine touches. On the music I know best, I've discovered new instruments/backup singers in the background. They are incredibly even handed and neutral in a way that puts the focus on the music (they are not sterile). The bass (which took many hours of break in to fully mature) is simply incredible, I am hearing more in the 25hz to 35hz range than I’ve ever heard from my speakers. The speed of attack is so instantaneous and fast it adds to the feeling of transparency. the tonality of instruments is also excellent as well. The soundstage goes further back and is very defined. Even my TV streaming source sounds more detailed with more depth. Dynamics are increased. Movies really pound and soar with the right soundtrack. I’ve heard some Atma-Sphere setups over the years, and by my recollection, there is a bit of similarity of sound. Mainly that transparency and even-handedness reminds me of past experiences with Ralphs amps. I would say that for my musical and audio values, the Atma-Sphere’s sound twice as good as the VTV :) So I think they are a VERY good value.
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@sngreen you mean dealers? |
Your first statement above isn't correct. Amplifier designers do not limit their designs on account of a limitation in loudspeakers- everyone I know in the business, whether tube or solid state, is trying to wring the most performance out of their product that they can. Amps aren't perfect for their own reasons, for example no-one is going to ever get rid of distortion no matter the speaker. IME/IMO when you try to work synergies in your system you wind up with more distortion. For example bright amplifiers are often so due to unmasked higher ordered harmonics; they might get paired with dull speakers in an attempt to be tonally neutral. Since the brightness comes from distortion rather than a frequency response error the result is often less than stellar- there will be some musical cuts that will bring out the weakness in this approach sooner or later! Better that each bit in the system stand on its merits rather than its weaknesses.
FWIW our pricing tends to be less expensive than our competition because we price to a formula rather than what the market will bear. You really have to just actually price everything out. Don't forget to include labor (and all that comes with that); all the work including the board assemblies is done by hand. You can see from the splash page on our website what that is about. A class D amp is a very different thing from a tube amplifier but once you understand the differences (for example, surface mount components) you can see that craftsmanship is still a thing.
The gain of the class D and the input impedance (100K balanced or single-ended) are both easy for any preamp made. |
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@ddafoe in my system I found the Atma-Sphere Class D was slightly better than the Pass XA30.8. I am hoping soon to put the XA 60.8’s in my system soon. And will be trying them a friends system with the XA60.8’s. But that’s my system and a few of us opinions. We had shared to the Atma-Sphere was slightly better all the way around. Was the your perspective in your system? |
@klh007, As you posted above, @ddafoe's System details says he owns the Meitner MA3 DAC. |
@ddafoe Is your DAC a Meitner? If not will you reveal it? |
@fsonicsmith, how many other audiophile products (that many folks purchase and enjoy their sound) would this statement be true for? Plus, how do you factor in the cost of custom designed and manufactured circuits/technology? Do you know how much Atmasphere (or other manufacturers with custom tech) spend to develop such tech? Unless you have listened to the amp in question and compared it to many other similarly priced products, your statement seems off-target from my perspective. Here is a photo of the inside of my DAC, which after owning various models from SimAudio, Berkeley, Bricasti, RME, and Mojo Audio is my favorite so far, it also costs way more than I ever thought I would spend on a digital front end and it has next to nothing under its cover. Does its lack of parts justify its MSRP?
So far I find the Atmasphere Monos to be in line performance wise with my slightly more expensive Pass XA30.8; I have not popped the cover off my Pass to compare them as in the end it doesn't really matter to me since I'm using my ears to decide which amp I prefer. |
I have been a member here for ten years and I have just had my first post ever removed by the mods. I had a short quote from a S'Phile interview with Charles Hansen which I duly attributed by author and source so that could not be the reason. I had a photo of the inside of the amp that is the subject of this thread and commented that the parts could not justify the price. That could not be the reason. Oh, yes, I think it was. I was never remotely involved in the ugliness of a certain poster. I bring that up only because of this- Tinear123 has a very nice system and I would be most interested to hear his long term assessment of this amp. He says he won't be posting because of the aforementioned ugliness. That's a shame. I hope you, Tinear123, should you see this, will reconsider. |
@mglik you maybe very shocked…. If you get a chance roll a set of these in your system. @bluorion I am running a Atma-Sphere MP-3 with Vcaps, Caddocks, and dampening. Running a Aqua LaScala DAC, Innous phoenix Reclocker as we speak with Roon. Much of what I listen to to Hi Rez…. It’s pretty damn good… compared to the other Class D amps which I’ve had in my system. These are definitely the best. And probably in the center of the price points of the others. They in my opinion are better than the Class A SS I’ve also had in my system. I’ve listed all the amps I’ve had in the system earlier on in this post. |
@mglik , I, too, own Atma gear (MP-1, MA-1-stock). We both know Ralph is a consummate stereo equipment designer. So, for me, I have put my deposit on his new Class D amps. The big question, as a Vandersteen owner, is the fact that it uses Feedback. Ask any Vandy diehard, and you'll know that amps with Zero Feedback work best for these speakers. So, am going to give these a try, and also try to get my dealer to set up a demo comparing them to his Zero Feedbackamps, if possible. Bob
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I have been anxiously awaiting Ralph’s Class D. Am a big A-S fan and joyfully use his MP-1 preamp. Since “going home” to Quad ESL 57s, I have cycled through several amps to find the best match for the Quads. I have the chance to put money down to get on the waiting list (6-8 weeks) for the A-S Class D. May still do that, but have bought an ARC Ref 80S. I was floored by the sound of the ARC Ref 160S at a friend’s. The best system I have heard. Was so engaging that I couldn’t not listen. So far, I have decided that the ARC Ref sound may have attractive “tube qualities” that Ralph’s do not. That is, a level of organic/real. |
I agree with @grannyring . Class D GaN FET (Orchard Audio Ultra) is the future and all Tube, Class A, Class A/B Amplifiers are antiquated Dinosaurs ! But a high quality DAC (PS Audio DirectStream Sr.) and a highly resolving Tube Preamp )BAT VK-50SE fresh form the Factory with new Mundorf Paper in OIl Capacitors - I couldn’t afford the Transformer upgrade) ARE A MUST !!
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I suppose it’s still possible to have an opinion without some folks getting angry? Ralph, myself, and all Agoners have thoughts and opinions. No reason to make fun of or attack these opinions. This forum is simply a place to share them. I will add to my opinion here. Class D integrated amps with tube preamp sections will also grow in popularity. Tube preamps will continue to sell well in the future. Amplifier performance is also held back by the amplifier itself completely independent of the speakers. We are not producing flawless and perfect amplifiers. Yes, how amplifiers interact with imperfect speakers also plays a critical role sonically. No doubt. @fsonicsmith, no need to stop posting on this thread, but it would be helpful and kind if you worked on your demeanor and respected opinions that differ from yours.
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I said I was done but this is such nonsense. Amplifier design and amplifier performance has been dictated by the limitations of loudspeakers. There is no perfect amplifier because there is no perfect loudspeaker. "Magnificent sounding options" and "Sonic improvements many felt impossible just a year or two ago". What flowery and prosaic language! That's a good one. The euphonic nature of tubes happens to suit the limitations of many loudspeakers in a manner that solid state often fails. Charles Hansen wrote about this towards the end of his life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L0k3-cporQ&t=5s Think of an amp as a complimentary solution to a problem elsewhere in the chain, not the source of the problem and impediment to sonic bliss. |
@atmasphere backs up his words with his actions. That makes for a strong case. We will see. About 12 years back I was on the brink of going with tube amps to get the sound I wanted but decided to look forward and try the newer evolving technology (class d amps) rather than backwards. I have great faith that advancements in technology move things forward. Been a Class D amp fan ever since. Still have a tube preamp sitting idle currently but never took the tube amp plunge. class D did the job better for me. No looking back now at this point. Kudos to Ralph for being forward thinking and having always had a great appreciation for good things past.
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I agree with Ralph regarding future sales of tube amps. Sure, some will always want to own one, but sales will erode dramatically over the next 10 years. Seems like a rather reasonable statement. Innovation in Class D amplification will continue and magnificent sounding options will be introduced at ever increasing speed delivering sonic improvements many felt impossible just a year or two ago. |
@fsonicsmith That was not my intent. To my understanding I've not side-stepped this issue at all: IMO power tubes are on life support- even in the guitar industry class D has been making significant inroads in the last couple of years. Its clear that any manufacturer of amplifiers now has to contend with class D technology in a way that they did not a decade ago; in particular manufacturers of tube amplifiers will find their market shrinking dramatically over the next ten years. The reasons for owning tube amps (the 'sound') is being heavily eroded by advances in class D technology; any manufacturer that ignores this does so at their own peril.
@atulmajithia In order for an amplifier to exhibit the same smooth character as the music itself, in order to not sound bright, distortion must not rise with frequency. This is one of several characteristics needed to allow the amp to be musical and not bright. If a tube amplifier is zero feedback and has sufficient bandwidth (not including the output transformer if one is present) then this really isn't a problem. Of course the designer needs to pay attention to other issues but distortion vs frequency is pretty important. The ear is very sensitive to higher ordered harmonics since it uses them to sense sound pressure. It also assigns a tonality to all forms of distortion and higher ordered harmonics get the value of 'harsh and bright'. In addition distortion products occurring in the Fletcher Munson region (3-7KHz) causes distortion in that range to be more easily heard. TIM is a product of an amplifier having high feedback but also has part of the amplifier outside of the feedback circuit so unable to compensate for certain types of distortion. An example might be the base of a transistor in a differential pair, wherein the input signal is applied to that transistor while the feedback is applied to the base of the transistor's mate. This is a common circuit in many solid state amps over the years. Class D amps of the self-oscillating variety (like ours) don't have that kind of input circuit and so avoid this problem. |
@atmasphere Thank you for your patience and great explanations. With regard to the high-lighted statement below:
Would you please expound upon your statement: "keeping distortion vs frequency linear across the audio band"? I am afraid I don't quite follow.
Also, since you mentioned that your Class-D amp uses a fairly large amount of loop feed-back, which helps keep THD down, would you please inform what your amp produces by way of Transient Intermodulation Distortion (TIM)? In that light, since there are many different methods of measuring TIM, and also since it's very difficult to measure, would you please inform which method(s) were used? |
@atmasphere Thanks for the helpful comments in response to my questions about the choices of switching frequency and power supply for your Class D amps. |
People have been jumping all over @kuribo, which as @noske described earlier in a puerile fashion, with Troll and Fan Boi descriptions. But this seems like more like what they are describing. When someone has 40 year in the industry, and brought balanced XRL to home audio, it is different than PS Audio YouTube videos. One can only be so humble and demur, and honesty is not exactly overdoing it in a self promotion way. I am not sure how Ralph can respond and communicate any better than he has? He certainly does much better than I can do in the sense, but I am also not an expert in the field.
He also said that if people like the absolute best numbers and even lower distortion, that Bruno has those in the Purifi Class-D that they sell.
We can also roll in ARC with Purifi and Atmasphere, but that does not change the fact that they are running a business and have decided that a move to Class-D is a direction that they want to be poised for. if one asks hard questions, or makes statements that are not appreciated they are referred to as Trolls and Fan Bois, and if they respond civilly then they are referred to as an ambassador.
^great^ |
@fsonicsmith - I guess time will tell if Ralph's assessment pans out, but I'm essentially with you none of my tube amps are going anywhere unless I purchase some other tube amp, or the powers to be come breaking down the door to mandating its cart-off. |
Ralph, I think you missed your calling. You should have been the US Ambassador to North Korea, China, or Iran. You have side-stepped your bold declaration that tube amps, the entire category bar none, are on their way out. But that is fine. I will not say another word in this thread and I truly wish you the best. I am confident enough in my high-end audio world to not let a different opinion-even yours-bother me any more than it has (which was relatively minor). Perhaps you could be so kind as to look me up three, five, or ten years down the road and tell me when my ARC Ref 150SE and ARC Ref 80 power amps have been rendered value-less. on the market so I can inquire of my accountant if I can declare a depreciation deduction. |
The allure of a higher switching speed is increased loop gain which allows for more feedback. The downside is that you need to have deadtime and that value is a constant that does not change with switching frequency. Distortion thus increases with the switching frequency, so I guess in a way there is a sweet spot. The other issue is the faster you switch, the crazier the stray inductances become which can result in parasitics at some pretty high frequencies! We used a toroid simply because a SMPS really should be custom-built for its application. There are a good number of advantages to SMPSs such as voltage regulation and oddly, lower noise (wasn’t the case 30 years ago!). But you have to be careful about current limiting issues which can really be a thing if the amp is subjected to lower impedance loudspeakers and in particular ones with crazy phase angles. So its easier to simply use a toroid.
Sorry- that was an oversight on my part. If you don’t know, we’ve been pushing balanced operation longer than anyone else in high end audio; our MP-1 was/is the first balanced line preamp ever made for home use. Its not something we backed away from in the class D!
:) as Capitan Kirk once said ’Who do I have to be?’ Seriously though we think our class D sounds better than our tube amps although we’ve not done serious comparison with our bigger tube amps. We think our tube amps sound better than most other tube amps so its a simple logic statement at that point. But I really wasn’t commenting on our amp in particular; I was commenting on the fact that class D offers a technique (rather than specific amps, although there are class D amps out there that get very nice comments such as the AGD and Orchard) wherein this is possible, since it is very easy to develop the Gain Bandwidth Product that will allow the designer to support an enormous amount of feedback at all audio frequencies. Prior to the recent evolution of class D this really was extremely difficult until the mid 1990s with solid state and impossible with tubes. That is why we never ran feedback with our OTLs, since keeping distortion vs frequency linear across the audio band is pretty important if you want the amp to not sound harsh. That’s easy in a tube amp if you don’t run feedback! Our OTLs have as few frequency poles as you can get in a tube amp and even with them we ran into issues with their phase margin. IOW, very difficult to prevent oscillation even with a carefully designed feedback loop if running large amounts of feedback. Conventional amounts were no problem but had all the downsides that have given feedback a bad rap in high end audio. Class D offers a way around that problem. We started with zero feedback prototypes but found out quickly that a zero feedback class D amp has to have a very stable oscillator for the triangle wave, else you get a high noise floor as the oscillator drifts in frequency. With self-oscillating designs this source of noise is eliminated.
Funny thing about that, people still want them and don’t always believe things that I say, as we’ve seen on this thread. You get used to that over time :) But I can see a day when our tube amps become custom order only or gone altogether.
No. Class D has been an evolving tech for quite some time. Clearly others have gone before us and it is they that solved the lion’s share of difficulties, Bruno Putzeys in particular. In a way I think we were lucky in that in our design it worked out that the primary distortion sources tended to produce lower ordered harmonics, so although the overall distortion is much lower, the actual distortion signature otherwise would make you think you’re looking at a tube amp.
If you look back you’ll see that I answered that question several times on this thread for kuribo. He seemed unable to accept the answer, as best I can make out because he thinks the autonomic senses and taste are the same thing. One thing that is a bit of a hurdle, now that you bring it up, is the higher output impedance of zero feedback tube amps in particular. This causes some ’warmth’ the class D won’t have because the tube amp will likely have a slight FR error in the bass associated with the impedance rise with most speakers have in this region. The ear interprets that extra bass energy as a bit of warmth and it causes the perception to tilt slightly away from the highs. Once you compensate for that (on my speakers I used pink noise to set them up with each amp comparison since the driver levels are independently adjustable), then you see what is really afoot. |
I have always expressed my appreciation for Ralph's contributions on this Board. Don't believe me? Look at my previous posting history and you will see for yourself. But up until now I never saw such promotion-as here-of his own product.
How much hubris can a man possibly have to make such a pronouncement! This man has solved the problems leading to 20 years of "terrible missteps" of all that came before him? How is this pronouncement any different than those of the dumb prognosticators who declared vinyl dead once Philips-Sony came out with CD players in 1982 or so? Vinyl is far more of a "hassle" than tubes. Who is Ralph to declare that his subjective opinion of the sound of his own product is absolute? Ralph will no doubt diplomatically respond that he is not just referencing his own Class D amp. If so, than tell us Ralph which other Class D amps are you declaring to be subjectively better than the best tube amps other than your own? Ralph, how can you possibly tell the thousands of us with tube amps and preamps that if we only gave your Class D amp a good audition we would come to the realization that your Class D amp is subjectively superior? How can you then, in good conscience, even offer your tube amps for sale? As I type this I am wearing a mechanical watch, a Carl Bucherer Scubatec that costs the same as Ralph's amp, needs an expensive cleaning and lube every six to eight years, does not have the accuracy of a five dollar cheap digital watch, and has to kept on a watch winder or re-set once the mainspring's power reserve runs out. By analogy this would be the same as someone like Ralph stating that I should or will eventually realize that my preference for mechanical watches is folly. And Ralph, you have responded to virtually everyone else's questions and statements including those of the bizarre troll, and yet you won't respond to mine asking-earnestly- whether your class D amp has true balanced topology and if not, the sonic compromises if any? |
@j-wall - This is going to be a bit of a round-about answer: I've been a SET fanatic for several years, primarily 45 and 46 SETs. I just love the presense and intimacy that those SETs provide with my 98dB + speakers. I have been on the lookout for a Class D alternative that could provide or at least approach that SET sound that I have fallen in love with. After watching a video (don't recall which) where Ralph was describing his Class D monoblocks and based on his outstanding reputation, I ordered a pair. This was a leap of faith for me as it was the most that I had paid for any piece of audio gear except for speakers. I've had them in place now for a little over a month and will say that I'm not dissappointed. They are certainly the closest to the SET sound that I have heard from a solid state amp. They are not quite up to the SET sound that I was looking for, but they come very close. No question, Class D has come a long way and that will likely continue to improve. Coincidently, while waiting for the Atma-Sphere amps to arrive - a friend recommended that I try another Class D stereo amplifier which is Paschal based. I won't mention the name here (since this is a thread on Atma-Sphere Class D). Is it as good as the Atma-Sphere, probably not, but it is very very good and I plan to do an A/B test with them in the near future. Neither of these amps will replace my 45/46 SET amps, but they are outstanding alternatives. I'm sure there are many other excellent Class D amps out there, but I have not had the opportunity to hear them |
@drhamp what are your thoughts on them? Have you been a class d user before? I'm very interested. |
Talk about audio (however defined) on this esteemed forum. There are many issues to explore and many wonderful contributions. Address the many questions raised. What is with this with character assassination? That is what inexperienced and puerile teenage girls do at school when they have a crush on some boy. |
I find it interesting that Ralph is predicting the eventual demise of tubed power amps. Aside from the supply chain issues and embargos with Russia I think they will be around for quite some time. Now I do like some of the newer class D amps including Ralphs. I think that the goal has been to get as close to the sound of a tubed amplifier with more efficiency and reduced cost. I recall reading an interview of that Bruno P fella and he said as much. Wish there were more GaN integrated though. Trying to cut back on boxes. Ralph has a winner as do Orchard and AGD. |
Sad that most of you realize this so late when I said that few pages ago. Remember, a troll will first bring YOU ALL to his level and then beat you through his experience of trolling. Folks need to refrain from responding to trolls, however tempting it might be. Check his history on this site. Join date, responses to topics, etc. He had an agenda and you all fell for that. Hopefully some lessons learned. |
@kuribo if the nueroshrome, purifi (etc.) opamps all measure the same, then what do you attribute people listening preference to? Or is it a psychological preference/bias? |
I respect Ralph for so many things and count his incredible patience with kuribo here among them. But in my heart of hearts I wish he’d spend the time developing an even more affordable stereo version of these monos (hint hint) rather than using that otherwise valuable time trying to reason with a troll who can obviously never be reasoned with. Better to realize that 98% of the people here greatly respect you and your work while kuribo gets 2% on both counts so why waste your time? Again, why would a guy who puts no faith or credence in anyone’s subjective opinion (save his own) even be here where everyone looks for, values, and shares subjective opinions? I suggest again that we just let kuribo keep typing away in his mother’s guest room or basement that he probably shares with her sewing machine and creepy dresses and ignore the useless drivel that’ll only become more useless, ridiculous, and annoying. Easier said than done, but I think if we put our heads together we can do it. Let’s Go!!! |
