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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Specs, measurements and such done right provide useful clues to what to expect from a product only. They help people make informed decisions.

But as is always the case, one never knows what something actually sounds like until they give it a try. So glad I did that a few years back with Class D. It helped me get to my happy place in hifi much sooner rather than later. Nowadays, I read these discussions but spend as much of my spare time as I can just enjoying the music, now more than ever.


I follow you around.......yes, Mike I am a stalker.  Yes, your threads get a lot of traffic (because of the drama...hey, who doesn't want to watch a good fight?)......till they are deleted.  And how has that benefited me?  I don't lie. I heard a pair of your amps with the best jacks and wire and run mono with $225 fuses.....I never said they were SE....they are your one quarter inch thick versions.  Now, you will state that your one half inch thick versions sound way better so my A/B is nonsense.  My chassis is one eight inch thick......he he. My "hacked science project" is just your jealousy for not being able to make the modules sound better.  So, now you are attacking........you see, it is a never ending spiral with you.  You cannot let go.  Everything is an attack to you, so you keep swinging your sword.  I will not respond to anything more you say as I have stated my truth and it does not need to be repeated.  I hope the thread continues as it is an important view to discuss.  I bless you and wish you happiness and peace.

I deleted my own threads on AC. I decided I was done with supporting an admin who would bend the rules for some and not others. If you read the Alexa stats, the value of Audiocircle went up by $40000 within a month after I opened my circle. After I left it went down $60000 in value within 3 months. I was putting around an extra $2000 a month in advertising income in the pocket of the admin, and he still made the choice to bend the rules for the trolls. So I wiped out my content, because I didn't want him to continue profiting off of my time and energy I put in. 

And sorry Ric I’m certainly not jealous of your hacked, warranty voiding science project. I’ve moved on from the 1200AS and have left the modules for all you wolves to fight over. My next project will be far superior, and much much more difficult for you guys to copy. So good luck! :)
So can we just leave it at that?  At least until your "next project" is available to listen to?  There is no real need for you to post anymore about amps that don't even exist.
Refer to the discussion, as a class D lover, I don’t have any knowledge to engage in technical facts! But give me some names in class A or A/B  that produce same amount of power as middle range class D amps in the same price range !
IME, the power of class D amps has always sounded weaker than lesser- specified class A and AB amps. This was also the case in the mobile audio world. One of my first jobs out of high school was installing mobile audio systems. We always had to turn the gain way up on any class D amps to get them to sound anywhere near as powerful as a similar-spec AB amp. Even then, the sound was nearly always thin in comparison.

It's funny (or maybe it's sad), even two decades ago, the manufacturers of those class D amps made similar claims to some in this thread - that their amps had finally broken the class D mold. However, all of us on the installer side quickly realized it was all puff. I worked for a large shop with multiple techs and not a single one chose class D for their own vehicles. We'd only sell them if the customer insisted on a small amp and/or had a very limited budget. Unlike the current home audio market, the cost savings of manufacturing cheap chip amps was mostly passed along to the end-user in that industry. 

A little over a year ago, I compared a Parasound H-int (240 watts/ch into 4 ohms) with a dealer's Devialet monoblocks that were rated at something over 1000 watts/channel. This was driving a pair of Maggie 1.7s to rather high SPLs. The Devialets, despite being some of the best class D I've encountered, sounded less ballsy than the Parasound.

When I owned the 350 watts/ch Rogue Pharaoh (Hypex UCD/ tube hybrid) it sounded much less powerful than my 85watts/ch Yamaha. And as previously mentioned, the Yamaha blew it away in terms of bass extension - by what sounded like a whole octave. 

This is a pattern I've noticed for at least 2 decades now. For whatever the reason, watt for watt, class D power sounds weaker in real use. It reminds me of how Japanese horsepower is often cited in car mags as feeling weaker than German power (well, that's one's easy to figure - it's really a difference in torque).

I have no personal beef with the topology. I truly hope that it will someday surpass the others in SQ, as I'm all about saving energy where practical. Unfortunately, all the ones I've encountered that a mere mortal can afford were still a long way off.