Which Class D Amplifier? PS Audio, Ghent, Nord, Merrill or other???


I’m looking for a new amp & want Class D.

I’ve seen various brands mentioned, such as PS Audio, Ghent, Nord, Merrel to name a few, but I’ve not heard any of them.

Which company is producing the best sounding Class D?
Which models should I be looking to demo?


Thanks



singintheblues
I’m now using wyred 4 sound mono blocks, and they’re just okay. They don’t add anything untoward, but don’t have much in the way of punch or bass kick I like to hear.
These are Ice powered Class-D’s also, you stated below they were bright also, what speakers do you own, maybe that new GaN Technics SU-G30 could be good with them?
Anyone with opinions on Wyred4sound’s monoblocks? I recently bought three, and they sound bright without much bass. Anyone?

Here is the Technics SU-G30 review.

The musical reproduction offered by the Technics SU-G30 was among the best sound of any amplifier I have ever reviewed. Technics has a short preamble in the manual that hypes the great sound of this amplifier and I agree with their marketing-driven assessment. It is ironic that the better digital gets, the closer it sounds to analog. Tubelike even. And at some point, digital can have the best qualities of digital and analog at the same time. This is how I view the audio prowess of the Technics SU-G30 – it is like analog, super clean analog at that.

My generalized listening impressions involved excellent purity of tone, a huge soundstage, amazing detail retrieval along with surprising excellence on streaming services.



 Cheers George
Hi Mapman,
Yes we are currently testing 2 Class D amps with the GaN technology. We are being very careful with our testing and all amplifiers are going into 5 different systems, so right now we are just keeping our findings to our selves until the testing is done. I will say it was easy to eliminate the bad sounding Class D amplifiers very quickly. None of the amplifiers with GaN technology have been eliminated.
Prices vary.

Cheers,

Hello jonasandezekiel, I am not surprised that you are not blown away by Wyred4Sound ICEpowered amps..... I have not heard yet Wyred4Sound amps that I have liked.... To be honest, I have not heard them for a few years, but what I have heard at RMAF until a few years ago sounded rather hard in the treble.


If you can tell us your budget and power requirements, several of us can make some concrete suggestions based on models that we have experienced, and/or brands that we have learned to appreciate.


Regards, Guido

worldwidewholesales
  Yes we are currently testing 2 Class D amps with the GaN technology.

Hi, I'm very interested, which ones are these GaN models you are testing? 
Where do you post up the test results, graphs?
Or is this subjective listening to them?

Cheers George 

George,

You should read the entire post he put up. He clearly says he is not telling anything until all the testing is done. Right now there are only three manufacturers of GAN amps....so we know two of them are probably in the mix. We will all have to wait till he posts more info.

What will be really interesting is how a few of the latest mosfet amps compare with the brand new GAN amps. There are very few who have even listened to the latest class D amps.....let alone 4 different brands together and even more coming in to test. The findings should help everyone in different price ranges. I said earlier.....class D is all over the place....just like all classes. Whether using mosfets or GANs......all amps will sound different....for everything you do makes for different sound.

There are mosfet based class D amps that are marvelous.......even though George says they are all crap. He has not heard the latest mosfet amps. Those of use that have heard the best of the latest mosfet amps know that Class D has already arrived. If GANs can take it higher....then that is good. But right now you need at least $15,000 to get a basic GAN amp (except for the 50 watt a channel Technics integrated).

In a few years when GAN amps are available real cheap then these $15,000 plus amps will be boat anchors.  There is no reason that a GAN amp has to be much more expensive than a mosfet amp.  The difference in price between the devices is actually very small.  The only reason Merrill and AGD are charging what they do......is because they can.  You could take the circuitry in the AGD amps and put it in a basic black box (no tube nonsense and plexiglass with glowing LEDs inside) and sell it direct for maybe $5-6K for the pair.  Once IcePower or Pascal or UCD or ? make modules with them then the prices of stereo amps will start at $1000.  But right now we have 600 watt a channel mosfet class D dual mono amps that sound great for a mere $2000 (yours truly coming very soon).