The Hifi Trajectory Of Class D Amplifiers

Not only has Class D arrived but their making a big splash and the ripples are being felt through out the audio community. For some of you dyed-in-the-whool Class A or Class AB fans, there is a technology that threatens your existance, well maybe not yet but they are getting there. Even those cheap little Class D amps by Lepai sound better than a lot of midfi conventional amps when properly set up. Even so I will keep my McCormack amp because it just sounds different but in a damn good way! But I will continue to listen to some of those Class D amps just because they are diferent but sound good!

Atmasphere,as much as a lot of folks here love the sound quality of tube equipment [me included] your assessment and comments on SS class D amps just doesn't sit well with me.

We know that you make great sounding tube equipment,but this thread is about solid state class-D amplification. You really do not have to defend your business every time someone speaks about liking SS kit better than tube kit.

I may be going out on a limb here... but I would presume that you never sat down and gave a serious listen to the likes, of say, a Merrill Audio Veritas mono block amp. If you can ever get the opportunity to hear them,I think you will be picking your jaw up off the floor...

11-23-15: Phd
"Not only has Class D amps arrived but ... there is a technology that threatens your existance ..."

No, the rise of Class D amps doesn't threaten my existence at all - not even by a teeny bit.

You really do not have to defend your business every time someone speaks about liking SS kit better than tube kit.

I may be going out on a limb here... but I would presume that you never sat down and gave a serious listen to the likes, of say, a Merrill Audio Veritas mono block amp. If you can ever get the opportunity to hear them,I think you will be picking your jaw up off the floor...

Your presumption is incorrect- believe it or not what is actually " defending my business" is actually done by auditioning products like these and then assessing the threat. If you think about you will see that no business in high end can really exist in a vacuum (if you will pardon the expression...). We assess a lot of technologies to try to understand how that might affect us in the future- I would think anyone in it for the long haul would do just that!

Further, its my opinion that you didn't read my posts all that carefully. No worries- but read this one, because it explains in greater depth what I am actually thinking.

First- Its not like we can't make class D amps; we've been looking into it for over 10 years.

But more to the point I've not seen Class D threatening conventional tube amps let alone ours (which are less conventional)- **so far**. What I **do** see (or hear, as the case may be) is that class D has effectively supplanted the traditional solid state design in all but the very best of the traditional designs (which might be a misnomer, as the best solid state amps I am thinking of are leading edge and really are not that traditional). Otherwise what it still boils down to is still just about the same old tube vs transistor argument which has been there all along, although the goal posts have moved about somewhat.

Those of you who are familiar with price performance curves will understand why this is so, and thus is likely to be so for quite some time. What the question really becomes is what part of the price performance curve (for more understanding, google 'technology S curve') class D is on right now.

Its my surmise that class D is nearing or at the top of the most vertical part of the curve. This suggests that the technology is reaching maturity. This is certainly what its advocates would like us to believe! If this is so, then what follows are incremental improvements.

FWIW, transformer-coupled tube amps are a very mature technology so improvements over the last few decades have been fairly slight.

Now if you have been following along, if my surmise is correct than this debate will be on-going possibly for decades. If my surmise is incorrect, then class D is a bit lower on its ascendancy of the technology S curve. IOW, breakthroughs are still possible, causing the technology to achieve much greater performance than is available right now.

So which is it? The answer is we don't know. But its been around for a while and its clear that class D is much much better now than it was even just 10 years ago.

So I am sticking to my position, which is not based on a personal bias or some need to 'defend my business' that it is possible for class D to surpass not only traditional solid state but also tubes, **but the latter day has yet to arrive**. But I'm not ruling that out as one can see from my prior posts.

Cleeds, please sir don't take that particular statement literally, no one is being threatened. Just to draw attention to Class D's formidable sound quality and it's getting better as time goes on.