Class D = Trash?


So, I'm on my second class D amp. The first one, a Teac AI-301DA which claimed to use an ICE module, was unlistenable trash. I burned it in for a few weeks, it just couldn't perform, so I sent it back. Following that, I tried the new Emotiva A-300 (class A/B). It was significantly better, but lacking in too many ways for my tastes. So I changed gears, got an 845 SET from China -- and it was an immediate and massive improvement.

So, before I went further down the SET road, I wanted to try a better class D product using a modern class D module. I settled on the D-Sonic M3-800S with the Pascal module and custom input stage. I read from reviews that these things like to have big cables, so I picked up an eBay 8 gauge power cable (Maze Audio, el-cheapo Oyaide copy plugs, braided 4-wire cable) to go along with it.

Mid-range GONE.
Soundstage depth CRUSHED.
Euphonics DISAPPEARED.

Yes, resolution went up. Driver control went up, allowing me to play compressed rock/pop and orchestra with the speakers being able to render it all. But enjoyment in the sound is basically gone. Using my best power cable (LessLoss Original) improved performance, but didn't fundamentally change the amp's nature. I ran back to my headphones (Focal Utopias) to detox my ear canals.

So, how long does a class D need to burn-in? I want to give it a fair shake before writing the technology off forever. 
madavid0
georgehifi,

Over six hundred years ago, adventurous explorers were looking for financial backing to sail west on the Atlantic from Europe to see what was out there and ,hopefully, discover new lands. At the time, early explorers limited their explorations to sailing around the coast of Africa always keeping the land in sight and never venturing out to open uncharted waters.
This is why these first explorers didn’t discover much beyond the trade routes from Europe to the East and back. The reason they were reluctant to venture out to uncharted waters and truly discover new things was because of the ’Flat Earth Theory’. The Catholic church was very influential around this time and it, along with other misguided opponents of scientific discovery, propagated the ancient unproven theory that the earth was flat and, if you sailed too far west, your ship and everything in it would eventually reach earth’s edge and fall off into God only knows what.
I mentioned the above because your ’Low Class D Switching Frequency Theory’ reminds me of the ’Flat Earth Theory’ in many ways:

1.Just as the ’Flat Earth Theory’ (FET) postponed some early explorers from discovering new lands, your ’Low Class D Switching Frequency Theory’ (LCDSFT) could possibly postpone some of the more gullible audio explorers among us from discovering new audio fidelity in their systems.

2.Just as the FET promotion kept explorers close to the safety of the shore for awhile, your LCDSFT promotion could keep some of the more gullible audio explorers among us close to the safety of traditional linear amps for awhile.

3.Just as the FET proponents used repeated claims of the false affects of an unproven theory to mysteriously prevent the advancement of scientific discovery, you use repeated claims of the false affects of your unproven LCDSFT to mysteriously prevent the advancement of system discovery.

4.There’s obviously more allegorical meat on this bone but I’m stuffed.

You never responded to my earlier questions, possibly from this or another thread, about whether there’s any scientific basis for your theory that current class D switching frequencies are too low and negatively affect the sound of class D amps in the audible range. You also failed to respond about whether or not you have personally heard any sonic anomalies in the sound of class D amps you’ve listened to.and, if so, whether you could describe what these sonic anomalies sound like.

When I first read about your theory, I perhaps foolishly listened to several very familiar and very high resolution (96kHz/24 bit) music files I have trying, as best I know how, to be hyper-critical of the sound quality in an effort to hear if there was any subjective evidence I could actually detect to determine whether your theory had any merit.
Well, after a few hours of failing to detect even a hint of a whiff of a scintilla of even a possible twinkle in the eye of even a single sonic anomaly, I decided it was safe to relax in the knowledge that my class D amps had no sonic anomalies in the audible range, at least that I could subjectively detect with my possibly tin ears.
Subsequently, I searched the internet for any scientific or even any subjective or anecdotal evidence in support of your LCDSFT and discovered there is zero scientific evidence to support your theory and the only subjective or anecdotal evidence I discovered was numerous google references of your thread postings here and on various other audio forums.
I find it hard to fathom why you have repeatedly made false claims of the false affects of an unproven theory on Audiogon and other audio forums.about class D amps. I tend to doubt you do it for some twisted personal version of fun and believe there must be some hidden motivation for someone to so diligently,consistently and repeatedly put forth the time and effort required, as you have, unless they personally judge achieving their mysterious goal as sufficiently motivating.

Don’t worry George Hi-fi, I doubt anyone expects you to actually reveal your hidden motivation or agenda.
Fortunately for current and future class D amp owners, repeated suggestions of non-existent sonic anomalies produced by their amps are not audible to any human I’m aware of.
Even in the infinitesimally small chance you’re theory actually has an iota of merit, the truth is if the thousands (millions?) of current class D amp users cannot hear these elusive, currently not to have been heard by human ears. very suspect and apparently extremely quiet sonic anomalies then they, by definition, do not exist.

Class D=Trash, my Ash!

Later,
Tim
I've always admitted Class-D is the future for hi-end, just not yet.
Very long winded post, but still can’t see the forest through the trees.
Read again and try to let it sink in.
https://forum.audiogon.com/posts/1417196

Cheers George
georgehifi,

I never set out to write long winded posts but I admit they tend to be overly verbose. I’m going to strive for more brevity starting now.

Your last post goes over information already discussed on this thread.and totally avoids answering both relevant questions concerning your theory asked of you in my admittedly long winded prior post:

1. Does any scientific evidence exist that in any way supports your theory that the current class D switching frequencies are too low and result in sonic anomalies that are audible?

2. Have you personally ever heard these sonic anomalies listening to good class D? If so, please explain what these theoretical sonic anomalies sound like. Apparently, you currently may be the lone known human believing in, and claiming the audibility of, these sonic gremlins.

Tim

Make of it what you will, something more for the OP to read, on the title of his thread.

"Switching Frequency" it’s mentioned a few times here.

This was an Absolute Sounds Round Table discussion with the industry top dogs on Class-D, the only one in favor is the one that manufactures them Jeff Rowland but had little to say amongst his peers.

Bob Carver
"I built many of them right here in my own laboratory with the thought they could and would fulfill that final promise.... I was never able to build a Class D amplifier that sounded as good as a linear one."

John Curl (Parasound, CTC, Vendetta Research, Constellation)
"Some version of hybrid Class A/D looks like the future in optimum audio design."

Cyrill Hammer (Souloution)
"if you want to have your product performing at the cutting edge it is not possible with today’s known switching technologies. In order to come close to the performance of the best linear design we would need high-current semiconductors that provide switching frequencies of several MHz or even GHz."

Lew Johnson (Conrad Johnson)
"I tend to think that Class D circuit design is an approach best relegated to producing low-cost, physically manageable multichannel amplifiers—where one might accept some compromise in sound quality for the sake of squeezing five, six, or seven 100 watt channels into one moderate-sized package for a budget home-theater installation."

Vladimir Shushurin (Lamm)
"No, it is not. And I would like to respond to the second part of this question with an allegory. Any field of human activity defines a number of requirements which, when properly implemented, guarantee a positive outcome.
For example, the basic requirement in the army and sports is an able-bodied individual. So, it would be quite natural to concentrate on searching for such an individual (especially as we know where to find him).
However, out of the blue we decide to choose a feeble-bodied person who, on top of that, is encumbered by various diseases. Having made this decision (which is a priori improper) we start justifying it to ourselves and others by citing the great state of our medicine, which is capable of curing many ailments."

Fumio Ohashi (BAlabo)
"No. Class D can’t really be considered for super-high-end performance in its present stage of development, although it can be fine for mid-market products."

Nelson Pass (Threshold, Passlabs)
"Does a $10 bottle of wine compete with a $100 bottle? Of course it does, and it often wins based on price. Right at the moment Class D designers seem to be still focusing on the objectively measured performance of their amplifiers. I expect that at some point the economics of the marketplace will encourage them to pay more attention to the subjective qualities, and then they will probably play a greater role in the high end."

Jürgen Reiss (MBL)
"I have worked a lot lately with Class D. Ninety-nine percent of Class D circuits are not competitive with linear circuits.
Most Class D sounds sterile. It’s tricky to figure out what to do to compensate for that."

Jeff Rowland
"I consider Class D to be highly competitive in the present, and to offer an evolutionary pathway of audio design that may produce even more astonishing results in the future."

Thorsten Loesch

I have yet to hear a pure class D Amp I’d rate above "below average for solid state" (which is not very high performance).

In a little update of my classic "Valve Analogue Stages for DAC’s #" I wrote:
"Perhaps more crucially, so called Class D Amplifiers, which have in recent times sprouted up like mushrooms after a warm rain, continue to use the straight two or three level modulation scheme described above. And thus they still require the use of heavy handed noise shaping to attain anything like acceptable 16 Bit Audio performance.
The clock frequencies for these amplifiers are usually at 300 KHz to 1MHz in the best cases. That is 3,000 to 10,000 times lower than what is required to attain 16 Bit / 44.1 KHz performance without noise shaping and other forms of signal manipulation!
And again, one is baffled and perplexed by the rave reviews many Class D amplifiers receive, as baffled as one was about the late 90’s reviews of timeslicing dac’s. The best of breed I have auditioned were certainly not bad; however in direct comparison to the best available valve and solid state amplifiers they do not produce a very good sound. Well, at least they offer novelty and the reviewers something to write about other than another (however good sounding) 8 Watt valve amp.
Incidentally, the best sounding Class D amps tend to be really low power single chip devices (putting out little more than the 8 watt valve amps), presumably because they are faster AND because they always work near what one might call “full scaleâ€, if they would be dac’s. On second thought, they of COURSE are DA Converters and where a Class D amplifier accepts analogue input directly it is an A2D converter followed by a power D2A converter!
What an insight!?" Mark Levinsons Interleaving of multiple Class D Amplifiers is potentially a step in the right direction, but does not go far enough.Personally I think that the best option would be something that combines a Class D Amplifier for the heavy lifting with something Class A for fine detail. Probably implemented in the style I did for AMR’s AM-77 "Jikoda$" Style. In this case both of the circuits involved can operate fully open loop.
In many ways the problems in Class D Amplifiers are analogous (but not identical to) those in Class B Amplifiers (but without an option to implement Class AB or Class A) so similar solutions apply.
All Class D amplifiers are essentially delta-sigma DAC’s.
If the input is not digital PWM signals (aka "DSD") but analogue audio then it is also a Delta Sigma Analogue to digital converter...
Now DSD (aka SACD) which to my ears fails to come close, never mind equal true PCM CD Replay in most aspects of sound quality, operates at 2.8MHz switching, or around 10 times as fast as common Class D Amplifiers...
Why anyone would want to listen through an A2D followed by an D2A Converter that are around 10 times worse than single speed DSD is beyond me.
But with enough hype and snazzy naming it cannot help but sell high and wide.


Cheers George