Which Class D Amplifier? PS Audio, Ghent, Nord, Merrill or other???

I threw my hat into the ring here quite a few pages back suggesting initially that the Anthem M1 be considered for audition as my personal experience is that I like far better than my very well received Parasound A51 Halo, which of course is Class A/AB depending on the output level.

However as with so many other forums online in various other areas of interest, they often degrade into nasty commentary.  I blame the lack of face to face interaction as I don't believe people would speak this way to someone's face in person (there is too much risk of getting punched).

Anyway, I keep it simple, I stop following any threads I don't find are productive any longer and I guess its time to do just that.

+1 Tim.


George has trouble making the case that a particular technical issue (i.e. dead time) results in a particular sonic aberration common to many Class D amplifiers.


As I may have mentioned, I’ve had a number of audiophiles in my home (when it was better acoustically than now) and no one said "wow, that’s a Class D amp!"


They may not have liked the sound stage, since I make pretty laid back speakers, but not a single person has ever stopped and gone "Woah, that dead time man, how can you stand it?" In my bedroom I use an NAD 3020 D and it is pretty fine sounding. No switching artifacts can be discerned. If you only believe in reviews, fine, go read them and tell me which published reviewer says they can tell its class D.


In fact, once at the end of watching a movie did of watching a movie did my invitees say "by the way, where are your amps?" All my fronts were Class D with a Parasound driving the Surrounds. The sound was seamless. No one heard a difference in noise, distortion or coloration. Room EQ was applied to the sub and center only.


From a practical experience, and listening with others, I am fairly confident of my experience. Class D is dandy. I also have no particular reason to push Class D to those who like tubes, mega Class A or SETs. Enjoy what you want to listen to, with friends and enjoy it. What I have problems with are heroic efforts being made to make people doubt their own experience with Class D. Damn, I wish I could afford a pair of CJ Premiere 12s, because those beat everything ever.


Like Tim, I look forward to new technology. Since I consider Class D being capable of exceptional performance when matched well, I can only hope modern tech makes it even better. But 300 links to discussions about distortion profiles in the 100kHz range are not going to convince me something is wrong with my hearing.

Best,


E

Fellows, this has been a very interesting thread and I even understand a lot of it, but I am reminded of two things:
1) Two ( or more ) cooks can start out to make the same meal and come up with very different products.  It doesn't mean that their food source was bad, but that they cook differently. Of course, if you start out with bad food, then it is harder to achieve a good meal.  Some cooks can do it, while others can not.
2) As more cooks become aware of a new food source, some one will improve on the way that source is used.  In the electronics word, this improvement can happen rapidly.  I hope no one makes fun of this analogy, as I think it is a good one, but improvement in the new Class D technology seems to be coming  fast.
FYI look at the latest issue of THE ABSOLUTE SOUND's cover story on the new and cheap NAD C328 Hybrid.  I predict that two years from now, most new under $1K amps will be Class D and many under $3K amps, as well.

Anyone here heard a Marantz PM-10 ?

I heard one today.   Very impressive!   Clean powerful sound.

It was only when I got home & read up on it that I realised it’s Class D.
Apparently uses Hypex Ncore.
Specs say it’s 200w>8ohm, 400w>4

Very nice!

The Class-D is just going to be a money spinner for him, he buys the modules does a small mod so it can be said to be better, throws in in a box, and there’s his beer money.

@georgehifi
Just for the record, this statement of yours from the beginning of this thread is entirely false. Our design is from the ground up entirely our own so we don't use anyone's modules. We have a patent pending on how we eliminate the need for dead time.

By eliminating dead time we can use much slower transistors than Gan devices and yet switch at the same speeds. Of course we can use Gan devices too.

BTW looking at the heatsinks in the SU-G30 above, that section is the GaN amp, it may have higher than todays 600khz switching because it’s using these heatsinks, as EPC said to me if left at 600khz there is no need for any heat sinking on any of the GaN boards, so it maybe higher.

Heatsinks are required, even for Gan devices switching at lower speeds, regardless of what EPC allegedly said. The reason is that all output devices have a finite 'on' resistance which is exactly zero. It might be 0.05 ohms, but its not zero. This means that it will make some heat when full on and that heat builds up over time.