Revolution... Lots of discussion around this topic of digital amplification. I have not tried any amplifiers that are not class A or A/B in my system. I'm sure there may be some in the other realms that are great sounding, however I've heard improvements made in my analog preamp and amp system just through my source component digital domain by improving jitter and noise. I personally moved away from the analog source media when I felt the digital domain progress I made a couple of years ago was just as good, and in a few cases slightly better than my analog source. My speakers are easy to drive and very efficient and with my 4 different flea-watt amplifiers of both solid-state and tube all class A topology, the most realistic sound I've heard has come from those flea-watt class A amplifiers. Each one is slightly different than the other, but all are satisfying to me. If you get that level of satisfaction from any of your component's be they analog, digital or combination, good for you. I haven't heard any of the digital-domain type of amplifiers on my system, however in other systems, I've heard a slight "hardness" that I hadn't detected with analog preamp/amplification systems. Not a put-down, just preferential difference. I would be delighted to have a pure digital front-end to speaker set-up to try on my speakers to hear the difference. I have watched and heard the improvements in the digital realm especially over the past 4 years and I believe the best in that realm is yet to come. Source-wise, especially...
The revolution has begun!
Digital amps along with digital xovers are the future.....and you can have it NOW. I am not going to say that a $1400 Peachtree GaN1 amp will sound better than a $120K MSB Select, $145K Boulder Preamp and Bouder $250K mono blocks with $20K worth of cables in between (over half a million plus power cords and amp stands)......but it did beat the Holo May KTE with the Holo Serene Pre and Kinki B7 mono blocks with $1000 worth of interconnects ($13k). So what will it take to beat this $200 digital board from Elegant Audio Solutions powered from a $100 switching power supply? With a digital amp you do not need a DAC or a preamp or regular amp with feedback, tubes, or transistors. With digital amps you can bi or triamp your speaker drivers directly without the distortion of passive components. In fact, I would bet that if you bought two GaN 1 amps, bought the $600 digital xover from minisdp (with great linear supply and great coax cables) and biamped some drivers directly that it would sound better than most $50K systems. You could get 2 12 inch woofs and mount them on an open baffle and put a beryllium tweenter on top and set the xover to 1K or less (48db per octave). You hardwire your speaker cable to the woofers voice coil wires and use Music Purifiers and Ground Enhancers on each driver.....Bybee Clarifiers on the back of the woofer magnets.......speaker wires hardwired via plastic clamps into the amps (no binding posts or spades allowed here!). Of course, you can triamp.....and manufacturers will soon have powered digital speaker so all you will need is a source.
There will be other manufacturers designing and building digital amps that will (no doubt) be better than the EAS boards.....but they will come at a price. These, yet to be made digital amps will blow the industry wide open....as no more big heavy expensive boxes will ever need to be purchased......but what EAS has not is fantastic. When I do some mods to the Peachtree amp next month it should get a step or two better. Have fun!
http://tweakaudio.com/EVS-2/The_Audio_Revolution_has_begun.html
I have started a webpage about all this and more and will be updating it continuously.