Class D Technology

Great discussion and lots of valid points. I agree with those who feel Class D is not ready for prime time - great for PA and subwoofers but perhaps a few more years are needed for them to become viable to the majority of critical audiophile listeners. The black background many listeners can hear with Class D indeed suggests the heavy filtering is in some way affecting the audible sound. 

Class A particularly when no NFB used tends to have a somewhat warmer sound.

I have not heard Class D that I would call an inherent warm  sound, in fact not warm at all, however if a touch of warmth  is what one seeks a tube pre-amp upstream can help accomplish the goal.   The ARC sp16 I use with BC ref1000m amps does this to perfection through my very neutral sounding OHM Walsh speakers.   Tweaking of ICs and such can even make a useful difference here.

Hifi is like making soup.   You gotta toss all the right ingredients in the pot together to make it tasty for you.    Class D is a very good base to make your soup with IMHO.    Where it goes from there YMMV.

I have experience with many amplifying topologies, and I have found good and bad examples in each. Class D just happens to be one of the newest, with many improvements in the last generations.

100% agree with the following quote from an experienced reviewer:

  "Today experienced analog circuit designers have learnt how to harness switching tech (class D) in ways that please even those who initially wrote it all off as unfit for serious purposes should one be trained by class A amps of the transistor or tube variety. It used to be a sign of superior good taste to diss class D. Today it's become a surefire tell of sad ignorance. "

Today it's become a surefire tell of sad ignorance.

This statement is false.

Just because you heard a class D amp sound better than a tube amp in a particular situation does not mean that all class D amps sound better than all tube amps, or even that the particular class D amp sounds better than all tube amps. It just means that in that situation you heard something better that you liked between the two involved.

Heck, even in our lineup we've managed to make improvements in the last several years. I encounter people that think that just because they heard our amps 12 years ago on a certain speaker that they have a complete understanding of how our amps perform today on different speakers (or even the same speaker they heard 12 years ago....). They don't.

It just doesn't work that way!!! I regard this comment (taken out of context of course so simply as quoted) as being outrageously inaccurate.

Sebollo 001,

Who makes the latest generation of Class-D? The best class-d I heard, Hypex has been on the market for a long time. I wonder how good the latest generation class-D is compared to Hypex.