Digital, Low Mass, ClassD, Less expensive, Let it happen!

In regard to interconnects, way back when people discovered they mattered, I bought good shielded wire in bulk and made my own. This was wire that was used for TV stations, so you know it was the highest of quality.

Word got around about my high quality interconnects, and what a difference they made. I only made them for my friends and whoever they sent my way; no, I was not interested in a new business, just doing favors for other audiophiles.

One day I went to place an order, and discovered that wire was no longer available for the public, you had to be commercial in order to purchase it. No wire, no more interconnects.

Hi Mikey!

Not really sure what Pass amps have to do with the general behavior of amps in general. Care to explain that? It's a widely accepted reality that if you want the lowest distortion at low power levels, you want class A. A well designed class AB amp gets you close, but when the output devices transition out of their bias region there's always a rise in distortion, and for most AB amps that a fraction of a watt. Distortion then tapers a little, flattens, then rises near clipping.

Class D amps do nothing of the sort. Because their constantly switching they generate the most distortion at low power levels. Go look at the measurements. And beyond that, the distortion is almost entirely higher order garbage. 

It's widely observed and understood that dynamics and high order distortion are virtually indistinguishable to the human ear. Amplifiers that are making .02% distortion at half a watt aren't intrinsically bad unless that distortion is high order. The ear is going to perceive that as a false sense of dynamics. It's unavoidable. That's the kind of distortion class D amps make at those low power levels and the measurements make it obvious. 

Let's contrast that with any single ended amp. Instead of this distortion peak at half a watt it's way out near the power limit. At half a watt it's as low as it gets and it's 2nd order. It stays low even order across the power band. It only gets ugly, odd, and higher order at clipping. And sonically that makes sense to do since dynamics should be pronounced at high volume. I can't think of any reason why you'd want exaggerated dynamics at low power levels. It's like using a loudness control. 

Hi Mikey! 

Pretty much nothing I said had anything to do with any particular amp or manufacturer. It's very easy to speak in broad generalities about these things because the characteristics of class A, class AB, and class D are universal to some extent. Anybody with eyes can look at the measurements and arrive at the conclusions I made. I guess since you don't have any argument you're going to resort to jamming words in my mouth I never said so you can weakly assassinate my character. That's not very nice, Mikey. 

I abandoned tubes amps (HK CII and CV) some years ago, but having heard a very fine 65 wpc KT88 tube amp recently driving my OB speakers with a 12 ohm impedance, I am swinging back in that direction.  Of course a tube amp is de rigueur, in my opinion, but there is such magic in a powerful tube amp that my SS amp can't reproduce.  Flea watt tube amps make no sense to me.   I demo'd a couple of mid-fi Class D amps  a while back and they initially sounded quite good, but after a time, I felt that I was missing something, the something being found immediately when I swapped back my Class A/B amp into the system.  Maybe the higher-end Class D amps are as musical as other Class A, Class A/B and tube amps, but they are out of my price range. 

MG's point is well taken that Class D amps are the wave of the future and I think they will figure it out, but at the moment I am going back to a tube amp myself.  One reason I abandoned the HK Citation amps was the PITA of biasing them.  With modern tube amps, it is a simple process, indeed.  Plus, there are a sufficient number of new tubes available that pretty much give NOS tubes are run for their money.