Class D amps seem poised to take over. Then what?


I am certainly biased by my lifetime final amp being a Class D. But I know that after 30+ years of development, Class D seems to be on a high plain. I know there are now many, many companies focusing on Class D and, maybe, a good handful already as good as it gets. My Class D amp is as smooth and beautifully musical as a great tube amp and as punchy and detailed as a great SS amp. I am satisfied and done with my search. A class D amp has effectively taken me off the amp merry-go-round. It’s about time after 50 years. And, for me, this Class D is a milestone. Will all other classes of amps fade away?
mglik

Showing 1 response by realthing

I had a tube amp in the late 60s/early 70s (HH Scott 222c, still have one), a Sony TA-3200F (first 'super amp', still have it) and multiple others. Now I find myself using a number of TPA-3118 based class 'T' amps (D with a few mods as you know) since I have a 4-way with a mono sub, requiring 7 amp channels to quad-amp (rest of the system is on 2 desktop computers). They sound incredible and eat hardly any power, not that I focus on the latter. My only concern was phase effects on the tweeters, what with the RF filter, but since I correct measured phase deviations on the 'crossover' computer's filters anyway it doesn't matter (and there's hardly any anyway). Scoping tweeter waveforms requires some amplitude to overwhelm the residual RF (rough on the ears) but that's the only drawback. Sound is crystal clear, and it's amazing to see tiny chip amps driving big Altecs and horns (though they're exactly what they should be driving, being efficient). Big speaker doesn't mean big amp.
I see/hear nothing with these little amp boards that's inferior to what I've seen/heard over the years through my heavy, hot old amps, which I still love. Quite amazing really.