Wow! We all know our own equipment is a matter of our own taste and personality. Most of the time when we give our opinion when asked on this site what is better or sounds best we add the IMHO. We all have opinions most of us just don't get paid for them. For some reason if we are paid and published it seems to matter more. I value members of the Audiogon community opinions much more then one single minded reviewers opinion.
Just like mentioned above, "new technology gets it hard like when solid state was new". Remember when CD players were still developing in the late eighties? Philips came out with their TDA1545A 16 bit dac chip. People liked it, but wanted better. Now many designs are being designed that sound better then anything else using this chip. Zanden comes to mind here, if you want a TDA1545A-S2 chip it will cost you $200.00 for just the chip.
My point is in 15 years we will be trying to find these current class D amps because they sound so good and the new technology will be the argument.
I changed from $8K Melos separates to an $8K integrated to a class D amp and tube preamp because it like it.
Just like mentioned above, "new technology gets it hard like when solid state was new". Remember when CD players were still developing in the late eighties? Philips came out with their TDA1545A 16 bit dac chip. People liked it, but wanted better. Now many designs are being designed that sound better then anything else using this chip. Zanden comes to mind here, if you want a TDA1545A-S2 chip it will cost you $200.00 for just the chip.
My point is in 15 years we will be trying to find these current class D amps because they sound so good and the new technology will be the argument.
I changed from $8K Melos separates to an $8K integrated to a class D amp and tube preamp because it like it.