New Class D amplifiers

@ddafoe

Throwing it back at you, please show me why the $5000 AtmaSphere amplifier does not ’perform as well’ as the Orchard or the Hypex, or the Purifi.

The designer has said he can’t compete with the performance of the Putzey’s designed amps, so there is that.

Subjective opinions can not be debated so there is no point in discussing them. There is no right or wrong, nothing provable, nothing factual. No need to discuss what I have heard, what you have heard.

What we can discuss is objective performance. That can be quantified, measured, compared. It's what amp designers use to design their product. Most, but not all, endeavor to create a device with as little added distortion as possible. Please compare the distortion added to the signal by the Hypex and Purifi amps and compare to other class d amps. Tell me which are truest to the input signal. This is the only way to objectively judge and compare amps.

"Objective performance has never been proven to mean anything sonically.....so there is no need to discuss it, the only thing worth discussing is how it sounds"......

This statement is the opposite of what was just stated above. Who is correct? It does not matter. The mind believes what it will.....but your senses tells you what is REAL

Can any of these above mentioned amps (Purifi, Hypex, Orchard, AGD, Atmasphere, Technics, Lyngdorf, etc.) keep up sonically with a modified Peachtree GaN 1 or VTV D300 digital amp? Your analog Class D amps need a DAC, analog cables and maybe a preamp....the digital amp just needs a streamer with volume control and a single coax cable. Way less money........and we shall see very soon how they compare......as the first modded Peachtree GaN1 will soon be compared to the Coda 16 amp.....both driven by the Lumin X1 using Leedh digital volume control......this will be fun!

as the first modded Peachtree GaN1 will soon be compared to the Coda 16 amp.....both driven by the Lumin X1 using Leedh digital volume control......this will be fun!

I wonder if this would be apples to apples comparison ? With Peachtree GAN1, you are using only the streamer functionality of X1, while with Coda 16, you are using both the streamer and DAC functionality. Likely, they would sound very different ?

I haven’t heard or read of any issues with customer service from the many US and European sellers of class d amps using Hypex or Purifi modules. Do you have actual evidence of poor customer service you can share from any of the main stream amp providers?

This is a strawman; I didn't mention anything about the brands above.

I didn’t bring up your product here, you entered the discussion after I commented that there is no need to spend $5000 on a class d amp when there are better performing amps available for a fraction of that. I didn’t mention your amp by name. You jumped in and offered a justification for the high price.

And no, I have not singled you out, I made a general comment. I would respond the same way to any product here that has a performance not scaled to the price. I appreciate substance over form.

Calling BS. If you are going to take that approach, you need to up your game.

FWIW we did not make our class D with an idea of making it to a certain price point. Instead we wanted good quality in all the parts with good reliability and priced to the same formula we've used for the last 40 years.

As I said, there is no reason to spend $3000, $4000, $5000, or more on a class d amp to get state of the art performance. When you spend that sort of money, you are paying for cosmetics rather than performance. If that’s what is important to you, have at it.

So this is what you think Technics is up to?

I have chosen to troll this thread? No, I made a general statement that you decided to challenge. I simply responded.

But, ok, I have failed to identify the market you are attempting to serve. Let’s say then it must be that segment of the market where high prices are a feature, not a bug, and where "value" isn’t a consideration. That’s fine and honest. No need to justify your price here, I get it.

Again, calling BS. And FWIW, still don't seem to understand the market. Your strawman here demonstrates that obviously enough.

No, you didn’t mention anything directly about Hypex, Purifi, etc. You made a general statement about cheaper alternatives. I simply seeking to clarify the record by asking for any evidence of issues with Hypex or Purifi, which are much cheaper alternative. You haven’t provided any so we can assume you weren’t including them in your general statement. Thanks for clarifying.

And it is easy to scroll through this thread and see that no, I never mentioned your product, nor anyone else’s, by name, when I made my comment about "no need to spend $5000 on a class d amp"...you jumped in and tried to justify your price. Anyone who can read can see this for themselves below. Someone needs to up their game, but it isn’t me.

So you used the same pricing model you have used for 40 years. Perhaps you have been overcharging then for 40 years.

What is Techniques up to? Perhaps catering to a market that isn’t value conscious? Perhaps they are looking to recoup their r&d costs. Or maybe they are pricing according the PT Barnum theory. Speaking of straw men, this is a nice example- just because other competitors are charging way above what a closely performing, or more likely, better performing amp costs, doesn’t mean they are any sort of prize. Having lived in Japan for 14 years I know a little about Japanese business and marketing and the status that is created by putting crazy high prices on prestige products. The Techniques amp is also a bad value when judged on performance.

Again, you claim you are selling to a "different market". So what? Bottom line, there are products on the market with better performance at 1/5 the cost. For those looking for a high performance class d amp, they do not need to spend $5000 to achieve state of the art performance, period. If they want to spend $1000 or so, they can get state of the art performance, good customer service and repairs/updates, and a product that by all appearances will last at least a decade and probably more. They won’t get a heavy linear power supply (so what?) and a fancy case (for many, another so what?). They won’t have sunk a lot of money into an amp tech that they may want to upgrade if something better appears in 5 years, and if they wish to keep the amp for 30 years, they can buy 3 of them, put two in storage in case the others fail after 10 years, and still have $2000 left over to spend on whatever. Oh, and then there are those who might want to buy 3 for an active system and spend the leftover $2000 on dsp or a multichannel dac for an active, truly state of the art system. Wonder if they would miss those heavy amps and flashy cases?