I was talking about pairing the Atmasphere class D amps with the Wilson Alexx V
@carey1110 They should be fine with the Alexx's from all the reports we have.
Excellent Solid State or Hybrid Monoblocks Recommendations
I am interested in staying under 15k for a pair of high performing monoblocks, sold state or hybrid, to acquire.
My current system is an Aric Audio Motherlode preamp, a Space-Tech super tube rectifier, Teac NT-505 modded dac, outboard clock, Aerial Acoustic 7T modded speakers, ENIGMAcoustics Sopranino supertweeters, Grover Huffman Pharoah biwire speaker cables, Zavfino Silver Dart interconnects, Melco 6TB server, Melco CD transport, Waversa Reference USB filter between the cd transport and server, Waversa Reference LAN filter, Synergistic Research active grounding block, and Synergistic Research Ethernet Switch UEF.
My modded JC1 monoblocks sound heavenly. However, I am having issues with no sound coming out of 1 channel. My modded PassLab X250.5 amps sound really good but lack the top end sparkle, air and litheness of the Parasounds JC1s. I am gonna fire back up my Canary CA-160 modded tube monoblocks but am not wild about the tube maintenance requirements.
So, I seek another pair of monoblocks that excel in clarity, balance across the frequency spectrum but also present upper registers with delicacy, spaciousness, and nice instrument separation. I am looking at Audio Van Alstine 750 wpc monoblocks and the Thrax black monoblocks up for sale here on Audiogon. Other suggestions?
Thanks in advance.
Showing 3 responses by atmasphere
@carey1110 That depends on the class D amp, like it would if it was a class A amp. Some will do great. IME the Wilsons have a low impedance but otherwise are not hard to drive- no weird phase angles and such. |
@jaymark What GaNFETs bring to the table is low noise. You really do want a class D amp to be low noise because that noise can leak out through the air or on the AC power line. It can get into other components and mess with them. So its not enough that the class D amp meet EU Directives for low noise (or in this country FCC 'part 15'); it needs to be a lot lower so things like digital audio, FM radio, a phono section, don't get upset by the operation of the amp in proximity. A major source of noise in class D is something called 'parasitic inductance' which is might be a lead of a part or a trace on a board that is long enough that its able to resonate and transmit noise like an antenna. GaNFETs typically don't have leads making them inherently lower noise than MOSFETs, which usually do have leads. GaNFETs also tend to have a very low 'On' resistance, so low that a lot of the time they don't even need a heatsink, because with lower on resistance there is also less energy dissipated in the device. The inherently faster speed of the devices also means less deadtime to accomodate their operation. Deadtime is a period of waiting in the circuit so time is given for one device to turn off before the other is turned on (otherwise the devices can heat up very quickly and fail). Deadtime contributes to distortion- reducing it can make the amp smoother and more detailed. |