New Class D amplifiers

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?

As @jeffseight mentioned earlier in this thread, there is an excellent recent YouTube video called "The perfect power amplifier?" by Harley Lovegrove of Pearl Acoustics. Harley praises the accomplishments of Bruno Putzeys and his colleagues on building the Purifi amp modules, which are outstanding for their clarity, detail, tight bass, and dynamics. However, at the same time Harley says that the Purifi module is not all that pleasant to listen to without an excellent buffer to increase the gain of the module.

Harley mentions that Warren at VTV generously sent him a Purifi module along with a couple of op amps to use with it, one from Weiss and another from Sparkos. (He preferred the one from Sparkos.) So Harley’s view (and VTV’s too) is that the Purify module is a great starting point, but it only becomes a great amp with the right implementation. As Harley suggests, it’s technically brilliant now but it isn’t amazing yet.

In my opinion, we should applaud the efforts of talented designers at Atma-Sphere, AGD, Orchard, VTV, and elsewhere who appear to be using Class D models (whether using MOSFETs or GaNFETs) to try to make the best sounding amps possible. This may often involve more costly R&D, parts, power supplies, and custom components or modules to be successful in the marketplace.

Harley Lovegrove mentioned that he recently had the pleasure of having Bruno Putzeys come over for an afternoon of talking and listening to gear. Harley will be publishing his full interview with Bruno on March 14. It should be interesting!

I simply seeking to clarify the record by asking for any evidence of issues with Hypex or Purifi, which are much cheaper alternative.

This bit isn’t accurate. Have you priced them recently? We have. Using those modules would cause our amp to be more expensive than it is now.

But if we had it all made overseas it would be cheaper. If we didn’t have a dealer network to support the customer the same. If we didn’t care about the product being rugged enough to survive shipping abuse things would be different.

I’ve bought cheaper stuff that was supposed to be better. I hate to do it, because so often it simply doesn’t work out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVDEE30XB5A

We care about these things- so the amps are made here in Minnesota, they have dealer support, they hold together and have a lasting finish- and they meet emissions directives for real.

FWIW in the last 40 years we’ve been less expensive than our competition operating in the same performance bracket, often by several times. In the case of our class D, its less expensive than the amps it competes against, in some cases by mulitiple times.

FWIW if you bought an amplifier and put it in storage for 10 years, it would likely need to be refurbished at the end of that time since the filter caps would be shot at the very least.

Fortunately our class D isn’t one of the ’heavy amps and flashy cases’ you are talking about...

Its very obvious you have a personal agenda that has nothing to do with amplifiers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVDEE30XB5A

F'n fabulous...

Thanks Ralph.