Time to buy a class D amp?



Will some new class D amplifiers outperforming the current ones appear soon

(the newest ones i know were released a  few years ago)?

Class D amps attract me as I consider them the most ecological ones with obvious non-auditionable benefits.

I have no doubts that they posses the maximum ratio performance/sound quality among the amplifiers of all classes.

At the same time, the sound quality the class D amplifiers that I have auditioned produce, although is quite good,

but not yet ideal (for my taste).


I use PS Audio Stellar S300 amp with PS audio Gain Cell pre/DAC with Thiel CS 3.6 speakers in one of my systems.

The sound is ok (deep bass, clear soundstage) but not perfect (a bit bright and somehow dry, lacking warmness which might be more or less ok for rock but not for jazz music).

I wonder if there are softer sounding class D amps with the same or better details and resolution. Considering two reasonable (as to the budget) choices for test, Red Dragon S500 and Digital Audio Company's

Cherry  2 (or Maraschino monoblocks), did anybody compare these two?



niodari

Showing 1 response by gotvinyl

I see that you are interested in the Red Dragon amplifiers, I’m sorry  to say it appears that Ryan at Red Dragon Audio has closed his company. The website has sold out of all equipment and I have tried contacting Ryan about a needed repair and he has not responded. If I am incorrect please let me know. If anybody knows where to get a Red Dragon mono block repaired please respond. 

I ran a pair of Red Dragon M1000 MkII’s for two years. I found them to be dead quiet, accurate, revealing , with solid imaging and they threw a wide soundstage, they did not however have a lot of depth of field. I agree with other owners of class D amps, they are a bargain particularly, if you need a lot of power.

I can only speak for my experience with the Red Dragon ICE technology. I listen to music between 15-20 hours a week on average in a dedicated listening room. I enjoyed the M1000’s for the first year or so immensely but gradually found that the initial intrigue of their positive sonic attributes was lacking something.  I finally concluded, that for me the music was not emotionally engaging.  It took a lot of listening to reach this conclusion, if I listened less frequently or was primarily interested in musical detail  or frequency response I may never of reached this conclusion. I recognize that many class D owners enjoy their amplifiers and this is only my opinion. The M1000’s will be going in to a home theater application.