Class D is just Dandy!


I thought it was time we had a pro- Class D thread. There's plenty of threads about comparisons, or detractors of Class D.

That's fine, you don't have to like Class D amps, and if you don't please go participate on one of those threads.

For those of us who are very happy and excited about having musical, capable amps that we can afford to keep on 24/7 and don't require large spaces to put them in, this thread is for you.

Please share your experiences with class D amps!
erik_squires
Stop listening with your eyes (reading specs) and start listening with your ears. That is the only proof needed. And stop with the ten-year old stories. Get in the now.
And stop with the ten-year old stories. Get in the now.
The only current crop of D’s I’ve heard that have semi impressed, were the new Belcanto Ref 600M Monoblocks, yes they use the the newest "best" N-force NC500 modules that aren’t available to anyone but to Belcanto and other manufacturers.

But Belcanto modifies them from what I’ve we were told by the importer/demonstrator, that was to either cascade/parallel or series a couple of the low order switching noise output filters to give a sharper filtering effect of the switching noise.

But any speaker manufacturer worth his salt will tell you that doubling up on low order high power filters at or around the same area has it own set of problems with ringing ect.

This is similar to what Mark Levinson tried with their $50k ML No.53 monoblocks, if you look inside at the series/paralleled?? massive red inductors in the pics.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/mark-levinson-no53-reference-monoblock-power-amplifier

Cheers George
I just got some digital amplifier company inline maraschino class d amps to replace my Odyssey kismet class ab monos and I'm amazed how good they sound.  I used to have an emerald physics ep100.2se class d stereo amp and the inline maraschino blow that away and is on the same level as the kismets
@georgehifi 

"The only current crop of D’s I’ve heard that have semi impressed, were the new Belcanto Ref 600M Monoblocks, yes they use the the newest "best" N-force NC500 modules that aren’t available to anyone but to Belcanto and other manufacturers"

You should get your facts right. It's not N-Force, it's NCore NC-500 Hypex Module. And there is no modification to NC-500 module itself. Inside REF600 there are three circuit boards: a Hypex NC500 amplifier, a Hypex SMPS1200 power supply, and Bel Canto's input conditioning board with their Impedance Optimized Input Stage, for balanced, high common-mode rejection and to provide a low output impedance to the input of the amplifier board. The active element on the board is an LME49720 Dual High-Performance Audio op-amp in what appears to be a low-pass filter configuration. 

"The only current crop of D's you heard is REF600"  -  Are you always been this short sighted that after listening to one class D amp, you see fit to under appreciate or rather condemn the recent innovations and forward progress in Class D camp. 

I wonder how many Class A/B amps you auditioned before settling with the one you currently own? And is that the 'best" Class A/B amp made in the world?

If you seek the "best" in Class D currently available, I double dare you to audition Jeff Rowland's 925/725, Mola Mola's Kaluga and Merrill Audio's Veritas before you return to another Class D thread. 

As one of the reviewer pointed out, "the REF600M didn't sound identical to some other amps was neither surprising nor a criticism of any of them. Of three recent amps of my experience, the REF600M was the warmest, the NAD Masters Series M22 the most detailed, and the Theta Dreadnaught D somewhere in between. Why should various amps based on circuit boards of the same technology (NCore) and made by the same company (Hypex) sound different? I don't know, but the amplifier boards aside, I could see physical differences inside these three amps. The big Theta uses a big linear power supply or two, while the more compact Bel Canto and NAD use a Hypex SMPS. Theta and NAD use the input circuit on the NCore amp board, while Bel Canto supplements it with a proprietary circuit"