The Hifi Trajectory Of Class D Amplifiers


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I bought my first digital SLR camera back in 2005. Film SLR cameras were still king back then. Longtime film camera hobbyists and pros thumbed their noses at digital. Ten years later, film cameras have been surpassed by digital cameras and are nearly extinct. Millions of people use cameras. The market was already in place for anyone that would advance the technology of digital photography.

With Class D amps, you don't have a marketplace the size of the camera marketplace. There doesn't seem to be enough economic incentive to spend the necessary research dollars to advance the technology to get the same sort of improvement trajectory that digital photography has enjoyed.

Anyone care to speculate how long it will take for Class D amps to consistently rival the best tube, Class A and Class A/B across the board....and do it without resorting to the stratospheric prices that current non-Class D amps are priced at.
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mitch4t

Showing 1 response by kuribo

The premise that class d amps haven't "arrived" is flawed. Many people love them, in fact many have dumped their Pass, Bryston, ARC, etc. amps in favor of class d. All one needs to do is read through the various Hypex class d threads all over the internet to see this. It isn't a question of if, or even when, class d will take its place at the table, it has already been accomplished. The objective performance of class d amps is now significantly better than most ss and surely all tube amps. Of course there will be those with vested interests who will poo-poo class d, and there are those who prefer the distortion profile of tube amps. Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference and subjective tastes, and as has been demonstrated in the market place, class d has shown it has not only arrived, but displacing traditional ss and tube amps everywhere one looks...