So what do you think of Class D amp for subwoofers


I am curious to hear what folks think of Class D amplifiers for driving subwoofers. An interesting aspect of this is the switching frequency is ~1000x higher for the frequencies in question, as opposed to using a Class D amp for full range.

My home theater is Class D (Dolby 7.1) and my next major upgrade is replacing the amps with Class AB amps, although I will keep the low signal processing part of the amp.

In the high end system, I found a four channel, 450W into 8 Ohms Class D amp from Marantz to drive the four subwoofers. The price was right and I am not living in a fantasy land that it is a JC1 sitting there!

I have formed my opinions but I wonder if others share my opinions as well.

Thanks!
spatialking
I have to say that anyone claiming class D amplifiers to sound edgy and digital either have not auditioned one, or have not auditioned one blind. It's a same level of ignorance to claim tube amps sound terrible because of all the anomaly in the measurements.
Spatialking - You stated that many if not all class D amp create noise starting at 15kHz but even curves that you refer to on page 8 of Maxim datasheet shows no noise (above -100dB) up to 300kHz (carrier frequency). This noise is filtered usually with zobel network and only about 1% of noise gets out. At this frequency (300kHz) speaker cables have to be 820 ft long to create 1/4 wave antenna.
My Rowland class D amp is placed directly under TV and even with weak analog signal I cannot detect if amp is ON or OFF (not even slightest difference in noise).

Tweeters are dead quiet when I place my ear directly on it. Performance is amazing - much cleaner and liquid than class AB amp I had before.

All amps produce switching noise. Traditional amps drain current from mains in very short spikes of high amplitude repeated 120Hz.

Could you please provide example of common class D amp (Icepower, Hypex etc.) that produces switching noise at 15kHz?
Kijanki - switching noise is typically defined as clock noise in this digital world we live in. Although it is technically correct to say "switching noise" when a diode turns on and off, that noise is insignificant to clock noise on the output of a Class D amp. It is incorrect to say a Class AB linear output stage produce switching noise when moving from positive to negative or back. If it produced switching noise, it wouldn't be linear by definition.

I will have to check to see what Class D noise curves I have left over from when I worked at Maxim. I know I have some white papers showing some noise at 15 KHz.

It really is amazing how much noise there is in the output of a Class D amp. Unless you have a filter on the output, you will have noise, there is no question of it. The only question is at what frequency ranges the noise will peak.

The filters in question here are hardly zorbel networks, although they would help a bit. The filters i have seen in use are usually 3 or 4 poles and are rather aggressive, high Q passive networks.

Depending on the amp, you may or may not have audible noise at 15K Hz. As I mentioned above, comparing the inexpensive Maxim chip to an audiophile piece of gear such as your Rowland is just not comparing apples to apples. Frankly, if your Rowland produced audible switching noise at 15KHz, I would send it in for repair. Just understand that noise at 60 db down will impact the sound, you just won't hear it as noise. My personal belief, based on designing a lot of audio amplifiers, is anything above 140 dBV inside a linear amplifier with some loop feedback will impact the sound in a negative way to some degree.

You don't need a quarter wave antenna to jam the airwaves so that FM broadcast won't get through. I suspect the noise problem I have is more harmonically related than fundamental related. A 1/4 wave antenna at FM frequencies is on the order of a few feet, depending on the propagation velocity of the wire.

Also, my Class D amp is only 10 feet from the tuner and maybe 3 feet from the antenna. The FM broadcast antenna is miles from here. Granted, the broadcast antenna is in kilowatts and the amp is not, but the energy from both decreases as a square of the distance. The amp may not produce as much energy as the broadcast antenna, but here in my living room I wouldn't bet any money on which produced more signal in the antenna.

I don't know if you live near me but a few seconds of having this Class D amp powered on with FM will convince you there is a serious radiated or perhaps conducted noise problem here. As I write this, I have the FM radio on, but the subs are not powered on!

What I do find really encouraging about all of this are the number of folks who are really happy with their Class D amps. If everyone here was telling me I have a problem simply because I was dumb enough to buy a Class D amp, I wouldn't bother to try and fix this problem.
Just a thought but -- have you tried a different tuner? I used the Sangean HD-Radio tuner with three class D amps in very close proximity and had no problems picking up even very weak stations. In fact, if you want to try it, I'll sell you mine super cheap -- space considerations and a system relocation forced me to switch to a Pro-Ject tuner box (whichb also works fine in reasonbly close proximity to a different set of Class D amps.
Spatialking - yes your FM antenna is miles away but the output LC filter of class D amp is set to about 60kHz and at, for instance, 60MHz has very very high rejection.
(and 60MHz harmonic of 60kHz is a very small fraction to start with).

Also FM transmitter, as you mentioned, has kilowatts and not watts.

Carrier frequency, or rather 1% of it that gets out, is not audible (unless one can hear 500kHz) and cannot even create intermodulation on nonlinearities on the tweeter since its membrane won't move at 500kHz at all.

Jeff Rowland made many preamps using batteries in power supply. One of his newest creations (with extremely fast op-amps) Capri - praised for great sweet airy sound has switching power supply. High frequency noise is easy to filter out. The noise I was talking about was not the output noise in class AB amp but power supply current spikes it creates (not so easy to filter out).

It is possible that your class D amp is simply faulty or poorly designed.

It is amazing to me that many people (not you) wouldn't consider class D even for subwoofer but never heard one.

If class D is not good enough even for subwoofer please read fragment of the review of the Cabasse La Sphere 5200W (fifty two hundred watts) Icepower class D system by John Atkinson (Stereophile):

"In terms of organizational skills, timing and phase coherence, and timbral and textural accuracy, Cabasse's La Sphère system sets new sonic standards. Its reproduction of the piano and the human voice is light-years ahead of anything else in my experience. Its ability to produce solid, three-dimensional images on a stable, remarkably well-organized soundstage also beats anything I have ever experienced anywhere, and by a considerable margin. And in terms of textural solidity, harmonic structure, overall control, and low-end extension, its bass performance is similarly unprecedented."