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Class D is affordable and sounds as good or better the SS/Valve why buy anything else ?

I have spent a fair amount of my hard earned money on big ticket brand new SS and VT/Valve amplifiers over the years without hesitation, with state of the art 2019 class D amplifiers becoming cheaper and sounding better, i wouldn't join in again.

For older technology amplifiers SS VT/Valve to compete with State of the art class D, Their prices are going up and up.

One example is Pilium Audio from Greece or Bulgaria their Divine Line the prices are all over £100,000 for their pre amps and power amps, I know the UK importer he said they sound OK,

Another example FM Acoustics again up to and over £100,000 for pre and power amps. i have owned FM Acoustics pre and power again their OK,

I am not saying they do not sound good, i am saying why spend this much when state of the art class D probably sounds as good now and can only improve with the GaN capacitors and is nearly up to 100 times cheaper.

Is there still a market for multi thousand £$s SS or VT/Valve amplifiers ?

When class D finally overtakes SS VT/Valves what will people do with their multi thousand £$ amplifiers, keep them knowing there is something better ? Or will we see the market flood with exotic used amplifiers ?

Digital technology is rapidly growing pace and becoming cheaper, with GaN capacitors being introduced the sound is going to get better and better and will slowly or quickly become even more affordable.

If you had 50,000 to spend on an Amplifier, would you buy a high ticket SS amplifier and hope for the best ?

Would you stay safe and go with high ticket valve amp, class D can never match good valves right ?

Or would you sit tight and see how the GaN capacitors can further improve the performance of state of the art class D ?

Please feel free to join in, everybody is welcome, i think its a very delicate/touchy discussion for some people with big bucks invested in older type amplifiers.
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audioman58's avatar
audioman58
1,219 posts
 
A good digital amp such as the Gato Audio I use from Denmark 
is very good and uses modified Pascal amplifier modules ,then their own custom analog input,output sections. A Vacuum Tube 
preamp is a great complement to a good digital amp.  you get the best of both worlds. Even in digital  dacs and players hybrid tube ,
Solid state sound excellent.
bigkidz
1,784 posts
 
First off, price does not equal performance. Since I build components and upgrade them, I have yet to see the quality of capacitors, resistors, transformers that I use in any typical manufactured product past or present. Have you seen Caddock or V-Caps in any product built? I have heard a few Class-D amps over the years, not many but a few, and those did not sound better than my old Lafayette KT-550 tube amp, not even close. But I am open to try anything. So if you are saying the cost does not justify the means (sound) maybe you are correct. Even the Counterpoint products that I upgrade sound better than most of the components I have compared them to today. Go Figure! It comes down to the implementation of the design. For example, not all R2R DACs sound great. Not all Class-D amps sound great. Not all conventional components sound great. I also don’t like circuit boards with surface mounted parts. To my ears, they do not sound good!

Happy Listening.
dorkwad
317 posts
 
I have a Nuforce Ref 9 V3 Se mono amps w/ TDSS level 3 upgrades. They are class D.  The standard Nuforce Ref 9 V3 SE amps already sounded very good.  It is why I Iooked into the many Nuforce and Nuprime owners that were having their amps upgraded by Bob Smith at TDSS and were very excited by the results.  For well under $4000 including the cost of the Nuforce amps originally, I ended up having them done and the result was now like having a pair of super amps for sound.  It also made them more reliable than stock.  I've used them in friend's houses with very different systems and speakers.  In every case, the TDSS Nuforce amps made the best sounds compared to expensive and well reviewed amps they were using prior.  The 2 mono amps are so small and light I can carry both under one arm easily.  I happen to have a very good TRL DUDE preamp that is 75 lbs. of great sound.  I was using VMPS RM40 BCSE ribbon speakers and they sounded great.  Now, I have an awesome pair of Vapor Joule Black speakers and the sound is just off the charts fantastic in every way.  I also upgraded my cables after hearing the potential of the Vapors.  This was the last touch the made a very nice difference.  At this point, following a 5-6 year plan I had, there is nothing to want in any way from my system.  I will just kick back and enjoy the music.  I had Edge and Bryston amps prior.  They were both good amps but these with the TDSS upgrades are many rungs higher on the ladder of sound.  

Bob
itsjustme
91 posts
 
The simple answer is that some people don't agree with your hypothesis, me included.  Maybe we are wrong, but that's the answer. If we all start with the assumption that class D is perfect, the discussion becomes entirely meaningless, except to a marketing manager trying to decide when old habits will die. IMNSHO we are not near that point, although Class D has certainly overcome many of its early teething issues. The NAD 3020D is pretty darn good - and that's actually a more meaningful accomplishment.


For the record, i know a fair amount about GaN, and am friends with some designer and fabrication engineers involved in it. Yes, its speed is useful in class-D, but the fundamental challenge remains the perceived sound of the reconstruction filter, which is very complex since the speaker is essentially an unknown to the designer.

I also do not feel that ANY design requires even $10k, unless one has some very special performance needs. The funny thing is that in my own designs, the device selected is one of the least contributing choices. I have used ICs, solid state and (to a lesser degree) tubes and achieved sonically very similar results - again with obvious caveats for tubes and tough loads.
G
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