Class D amplifiers. What's the future look like?

Always exceptions but Smaller successful older companies are less likely to make radical changes in key product design than larger newer ones. Especially those whose clientele are old school audiophiles.  

Nevertheless, time will tell.

All manufacturers have to deal with high risk decisions regarding product life cycle. Do they innovate with product that cuts into sales of cash cow products? Ralph has made his decision. In the last 60 years of computer technology, we see many examples of companies that lost out because they protected existing product. IBM protected their IMS database product and did not innovate with a relational product, and allowed Oracle to take that market. OTOH, they did have enormous success betting the company on system/360.

It sure looks to me like class D will be very disruptive in the amplifier market, but I don’t have a great track record as a future guesser.. ;) 

So my thought is that calling them digital amps is a reasonable slang and everybody knows what it is referring to.

The distinction here is that digital has specific on and off states that form words (which might be 16, 32 or 64 bits) that represent a value of a voltage. While class D is a switching technology, there are no 'words'; the on and off states are an analog of the input voltage so is considered an analog technology- Pulse Width Modulation goes back a really long way back to the tube era.

IBM protected their IMS database product and did not innovate with a relational product, and allowed Oracle to take that market.

To be fair, IBM did innovate by inventing relational databases and developing SQL.

IBM was also the source of the parity bit...

Tried my first class D Amp after lightning struck real close and fried my Amp along with a number of other high end components. To date I'm quite happy with the results. 

I think class D is not really taking off yet due to the IMO false impressions provided by commentators who have yet to hear a good quality class D Amp

Some of our older audio brothers get stuck with bias.I  happen to been one of them until misfortune led me in a new direction.

Always wanted to try the class D and now I'm not looking back.

As to the future, is it just a matter of time until all module makers switch to using ganfet? Is the current state of affairs mature with a much diminished rate of change? Or is there plenty of improvement available in the value equation?

I could go into lots of specifics on ibm, but off topic. My main point is that product life cycle, obsolescence, and innovation require difficult decisions that can determine a company’s future—a general concept far beyond audio devices. Sometimes a bet on the new thing fails, so there is lots of risk and uncertainty. Atmasphere appears to have made a brilliant move here.

As to the future, is it just a matter of time until all module makers switch to using ganfet?

I don't think so. In the decade since GaNFETs first showed up, MOSFET producers have improved their craft and are almost as fast- certainly so for any class D circuit. In the meantime, there are other semiconductor types that are already in production and on the horizon.

Interesting, thanks.