Time to buy a class D amp?

Hey niodari,

     If you're looking for the highest performance/price class D amp and don'[t mind buying used, I think the Merrill Audio Veritas monoblocks are a great option to consider.  Reviews on these amps claim they're among the best performing amps available regardless of amp type or price. They sold new a few years ago for $12,000/pair but I've recently seen numerous ads from owners with an average asking price of about $5,000/pair.
     Merrill audio recently came out with a new lineup of Element amps utilizing extremely fast switching GaN transistors that virtually eliminate 'dead-time' which significantly reduces distortion and improves sound quality. These include the Element 114 which is a stereo amp priced at $15,000 and 2 monoblocks,  the Element 116 and Element 118 priced at $23,000 and $36,000/pair respectively. 
      I'm thinking  the reason numerous ads are appearing for used pairs of Veritas amps is due to current owners of Veritas monoblocks planning on buying one of the Element amps and are selling their Veritas monoblocks in preparation. I strongly believe you'll prefer the sound quality performance of the Veritas amps over the Cherry amps but I can't know this with certainty.  Here's one of many good reviews on th Veritas:

https://positive-feedback.com/reviews/hardware-reviews/merrill-audio-veritas-monoblock-amplifiers-are-all-class-d-amplifiers-the-same/


Tim

Hey Tim. An important attractive side of class D amps is their low price 
and high ratio performance/price. I am not sure if for Merrill class D amps this is also true. Neither you nor me have auditioned it, given their price, they should sound almost magical to have a high ratio. Buying   Merrill amp would be similar to buying a very expensive electric car. I have a hybrid one which did not cost much more than similar non-hybrid onces, this made a sense. Demo Cherry amplifiers are on sale, some of them cost nearly the half of their normal price. If their sound quality is somewhat close to  Merrill class D amps (at least, not too far), ratio performance(Cherry)/price(Cherry) >> performance( Merrill)/price( Merrill)
even considering used price. And, perhaps,  older Veritas series amps are not magic sounding (if not, why they have changed the profile of their class D amps?). I am curious to compare SQ of Cherry,  ATI, Veritas and Element amps

I have been very happy with a Wyre4sound St 750le. You can check it out on 10 Audio's review site. He favorably compares it to a single ended tube amp sound and gives it a 9.5  rating.

Has anyone posted this yet $2500  https://thelsagroup.com/products/lsa-amplifiers

Hello niodari,

     Everything you said in your last post makes perfect sense to me.  Even though I've never heard the Merrill Veritas, I consider them one of the best examples of how well class D amps can perform because all of the numerous pro reviews I've read consistently state they are excellent amps regardless of amp type and price.  

     I wasn't willing to verify this at a price tag of $12K/pair but I'm seriously considering it at $5K/pair.  However, I can verify that other class D amps offer very good performance at a much lower price.  I went this route, initially buying a Class D Audio SDS-440-CS stereo amp for $630.  This was my first D amp and I was stunned by how well this amp performed with my Magnepan 2.7QR speakers, better in all aspects than the high current class AB McCormack and Aragon amps I'd previously used that I had paid over $2K each for.  It was also about 1/3rd the size and weight, ran much cooler and sipped, rather than gulped, electricity.
     For the past 5 years, I've been using D-Sonic M3-600-M monoblocks($2,100/pair new) on my Magnepans and have been very pleased.  They're very powerful (600w@ 8 ohms, 1,200w@ 4 ohms and, I believe, stable down to 2 ohms), have great bass, powerful dynamics and a detailed but very smooth midrange and treble that I never perceive as bright or harsh.  I bought these with a 28 day free in-home trial period, they sounded very good to me right out of the box and I never considered returning them.  I did notice an occasional brightness on the upper treble but this completely disappeared over during the first few months of usage.
     I believe the D-Sonic amps should be on your short list of class D amps to audition along with the Cherry models.  If you can wait a few months, Red Dragon has stated they'll be introducing an all new lineup of stereo and monoblock amps by the end of the year.  I haven't heard of any details about their new amp lineup yet but suspect these may be good candidates for you to audition, too.


Good luck,
  Tim