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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?



128x128niodari

Showing 1 response by jaytor

jaytor's avatar
jaytor
745 posts
 
I owned Nord NC500 Hypex class D monoblocks for 6 months or so this year. I found them to be very quiet and detailed, and fairly smooth sounding once they broke in (which seemed to take forever - easily several months). But ultimately, I was dissatisfied with them.

I'm having a hard time putting my finger on what the problems were, but I just didn't feel the emotional connection with the music that I do with the right amp. I replaced them with a Parasound JC5, which I'm much happier with (the JC5 is admittedly twice the price).
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