Thiel Owners

@johnnotkathi,

 Take this with a grain of salt.

Jim Thiel thought Class D amps were only suitable for sub-woofer duty. But a lot of progress has been made with Class D since Jim's passing. 

I haven't experienced these for myself.

Before considering those older amps that might need to refreshed with new caps, etc., which if you don't have the where with all to do yourself could end up costing as much as the current purchase prices..

FWIW, I would consider the offerings from:

Buckeye Amps

Though there is a 10% restocking fee for non-faulty returns, I think these might actually be better performing with less risk for less money.

Buckeye, VTV and a bunch of other businesses merely integrate stock Hypex modules (or ICEPower, Pascal, etc.) into enclosures, add connectors, etc.

Typically those modules are powered by their own onboard switching-mode power supplies, which are notoriously noisy.

They’re not terrible amps and they may work very well in applications like home theater, but you can’t expect to substitute them for proper class A or A/B amplification and hear no differences.

FWIW, the SINAD measurements would suggest otherwise. Not all switch-mode power supplies are the same. At the $1K (and perhaps even more) is a compelling consideration.

the SINAD measurements

😂🤣🤣

@tomthiel the Kinki Studio power amplifier is indeed different animal, very powerful and transparent with a superior damping factor.

A technical description (taken from the excellent SoundNews review (*) can shed some light about it:

“The EX-M7 is a direct DC coupled power amplifier, meaning that it doesn’t have a single capacitor in the signal path, all the caps you see are used only for power filtering or for storing power for high dynamic swings. You should know that M7 is working in Class-AB, meaning that is consumes a lot of power, offers a lot of power in return and dissipates a lot of heat as well.

With a direct DC coupled design, offering a continuous power of 250W into 8 Ohms, 420W into 4 Ohms and almost double that number for some instantaneous dynamic swings, should result an ultra-fast response time, some world-class dynamics and an amazing transient response without affecting refinement or the detail and the transparency of the sound.

M7 is drawing power from two oversized and encapsulated 400VA toroidal transformers that can provide up to 72 Volts DC and 18 A peak current! I’m sorry, but all my past power amplifiers and integrated ones are sitting numb and silently in a corner. In terms of specs, the big guy simply outperformed them all.

The incredible spec sheet doesn’t stop here: 4 Exicon mosfets are driving the output stage – these are among the best you could possibly have, there are also 4 output transistors per channel (8 in total) that should provide an instant power delivery to your loudspeakers, some high-performance Mundorf caps for power filtering, 8 incredibly large blue caps per channel for storing DC power, another 2 smaller toroidal transformers, I see some juicy and oversized ceramic resistors, and the list goes on and on”

(*) - https://soundnews.net/amplifiers/power-amps/kinki-studio-ex-m7-power-amp-review-a-natural-bare-knuckle-pugilist/