Would I be wasting my money to get a turntable?


I am thinking about getting a turntable but I have a Class D amplifier (Nad M33) which digitizes all the analog inputs. If the amplifier is just digitizing the source is there going to be any difference between the vinyl and just listening to lossless digital streaming sources? Is there any benefit to me, given my current amplifier with has no analog pass through capability, to adding a turntable to my system?

fritzenheimer

Showing 2 responses by kijanki

What do you call the conversion of an analogue signal to a PWM/PDM or ΔΣ modulation and its subsequent filtering to recover an amplified analogue signal? Because if that’s not digital, then CD is not digital and streaming is not digital either. However, that’s exactly what happens in a class-D amp, at some point. The filtering is at the very end, but the signal conversion can happen at the amp input or just before the final (current) amplification stage.

In class D amplifier "Voltage" is converted to "Duty Cycle", both analog - meaning there is no discrete steps (unlimited resolution).  Duty cycle is back-converted to (amplified) voltage by filtering.  Streaming and CDs both have limited resolution (16 bit in CDs).

Output-signal pulse widths vary proportionally with the input-signal magnitude.

What happens when your PWM’s oscillator signal frequency is not high enough?

This frequency, likely >0.5MHz limits amp's bandwidth.  My older Icepower was limited to 60kHz, resulting in 20deg phase delay at 20kHz.  It can affect summing of the highest harmonics (that I cannot hear anyway).  Zobel network on the output leaves about 1% of the ripple, but the membranes at this frequency don't move.  This 0.5MHz frequency is about 100 times higher than highest root frequency in music resulting in practically unlimited resolution.  I agree, there are limitations of class D, like of any other class - I was just stressing, that the fact of switching output between two voltage values doesn't make it digital since these constant voltages are not the quantity of interest at this point (duty cycle is).