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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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helomech
766 posts
 
Attention all class D fans! The opposition has an extremely weak case wouldn't you say??
Yet you won't address the fact that Bruno Putzey, who created NCore - regarded as one of the very best class D designs, stated that the only advantage of the topology is efficiency. He even emphasizes that notion by saying, "I can't repeat that often enough."

Here's the link for reference:
https://www.soundandvision.com/content/bruno-putzeys-head-class-d

Read it a second time if necessary.
Seems to me that making a good-sounding class D amp is analogous to taking a dump truck and trying to make it handle like a Porsche. Me, I'd rather just get the Porsche in the first place.
miveraaudio
111 posts
 
I guess you don’t understand that with efficiency comes a plethora of other advantages:

1: Size
2: Cost
3: lower energy consumption
4: Lower heat
5: Less EMI (conducted and radiated)


And due to the above advantages, possibilities open up the simply aren’t possible with conventional class A amps. Such as

1: Tight integration with DSP and DAC on same board to eliminate extensive sound quality losses from outboard DAC’s, cables, connections, preamps, buffer stages, output stages etc.

2: We can now fit absolute SOTA cool running DSP/DAC/Amp combos right in speakers to eliminate passive crossovers and speaker cables. The amp DSP can be custom tuned for each driver individually, to optimize for distortion, over-excursion, and saturation.

3: We can eliminate having to have separate enclosures for each component. And the costs involved with paying for multiple enclosures. While at the same time drastically shortening the signal path, and optimizing each sub-section to work together in absolute harmony.

The list goes on but that’s a good start.


three_easy_payments's avatar
three_easy_payments
211 posts
 
In my own personal experience, and to my own personal tastes in sound, the most disappointing amp I've ever owned was Class D - a Peachtree Nova150.  Consistent with what Art Dudley later wrote about the Nova300 - it was on the dry side with grainy treble...at least to my ears.  The amp has been long gone and I've been fully immersed in the much sweeter sound of Class AB tubes.
miveraaudio
111 posts
 
I think this thread is about today's class D. Why don't we talk about early 70's SS amps before the technology matured on class A/B amp threads? Or tube amps from the 30's before they matured on tube amp threads? Class D has now matured. So lets discuss mature class D. If you have not experienced mature class D yet, then you have nothing useful to contribute to around here. 
three_easy_payments's avatar
three_easy_payments
211 posts
 
@miveraaudio  My comment was about today's class D with respect to the Nova150.  It is currently what Peachtree markets as "First of a New Generation".  

https://www.peachtreeaudio.com/nova150-amplifier-with-dac.html 

My experience with this amp was from 2017.  Hardly the 1930s. lol
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