D-SONIC SOA Class-D Core Amps. The best Class-D ?


Owner/Designer Dean Deacon of D-Sonic in Houston in recent months dropped using the B&O ICE amps which he now only uses in the surround channels of his multi-channel home theater amps. He now uses a new Class-D amp in all of his Magnum2 mono and two channel amps which he states is the most technically advanced Class-D amp on the market, called the SOA Class-D core amps. The recent review in 6Moons of his new M2-1500M amp concludes its the closest that Class-D has ever come to tube amps in the upper mid-range and high frequencies.
Anyone bought or heard recently the D-Sonic M2-1500M or the M2-600M? What are your opinions?
audiozen
Interesting Henry..I noticed your Fire preamp has a very low output impedance of 20 ohms, which matches perfectly with your amps. Never seen a Preamp with an output impedance that low.
Since this thread is focused on Abletec/D-Sonic, as well as Hypex and other's, another newer Class-D switching technology just popped up. Phew!! hard to keep up with.
The Jeff Rowland Group had a private showing of their new Class-D integrated amp at CES, which is called the Continuum Series Two. No longer using B&O Ice Amps that where in the Continuum 500. The new integrated will be using the new Pasquale Class-D amps, exclusive only to Rowland. Rowland said at CES they are far superior to the B&O ICE technology. The integrated will be released in April and will put out 400 watts into 8 ohms.
Not all B&O icepower modules are the same. Some are newer, some are older. SOmetimes, different ones are used in teh same line at same time, like BC ref500m versus ref1000m.

Have not kept up on new Icepower development though. Have they stopped refining Icepoweer at this point? Certainly there is more and more competition all the time now it seems, which is to be expected. The landscape might be totally different in just a few years. Not uncommon for companies that forge new frontiers to fall by the wayside over time as others follow.
It appears that B&O has not moved beyond pulse width modulation, which is the area that amp enigineers have focused on in recent years claiming that PWM has hit its limit regarding the problems with PWM such as feedback and noise in the upper frequencies, as well as RFI/EMI problems. The only Class-D company that has fallen by the wayside and gone out of business was TriPath. Abletec, Hypex and the others are doing very well. Lets see whats in store for Pasquale. It appears based on my discussions with these company sources, that newer, alternative modulating techniques have resulted in zero feedback, much better linearity, and lower noise bringing Class-D much closer to the very best Class A and A/B SS and tube amps.
"It appears that B&O has not moved beyond pulse width modulation, which is the area that amp enigineers have focused on in recent years claiming that PWM has hit its limit regarding the problems with PWM such as feedback and noise in the upper frequencies, as well as RFI/EMI problems. "

I wonder if B&O or other engineers still dealing with it would agree that PWM has hit its limit? No surprise the competition would claim that.

I can vouch that Bel Canto ref1000m Icepower based amps do very well in regards to RFI/EMI. I have had those problems in the past. THe Class Ds would not be in my system if that had turned out to be a problem. There are many Class D amps out there, including ones that use stock Icepower, that have been reported to have that issue, but apparently it is not terminal for all Icepower amps.