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
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."
Its been said many times before...its not the class of the amp, its the implementation. We shouldn't compare cheap SS designs with the best SS, nor cheap tube designs with the best, nor cheap early renditions of Class D with the best. Class D was known for its radio interference in its early days. New designs like my Bel Canto are light-years ahead in design. As time marches on, amps designs will continue to improve. Tube has the longest history, SS next, and now Class D. No doubt there will be superb designs of Class D, and new classes of amps in the future, as long as people will buy them. As ong as the amps are working for you, be content. If you upgrade to newer and costlier designs you will hear the difference.
Thank you Grisham, you beat me to the punch! In answer to Bob_reynolds, there are some problems in citing the D-100 review to prove that switching amps are inherently problematic.

1. The review is of a moderately priced amplifier deliberately engineered to meet an affordable price point. D-100 was not intended to redefine the absolute state of the art in monoblock amplification such as Spectron monoblocks, JRDG 312 and 301, Mark levinson No. 54 (hope I got this model correctly).

2. The article is obsolete. It was published in August 2005, probably written about 6 months earlier. . . essentially it is 4 years old, which is a lifetime ago when it comes to the significant strides that the rapidly evolving class D designs are making.

3. From a symbolic logic point of view, the induction step according to which 1 tested amp of a given class having been found to have a flaw, all amps of the same class bear of necessity the same flaw is, . . well. . . flawed itself.

G.
Guido - Issue of the noise came in Stereophile review of Channel Island D100 (Hypex) only because test instruments listen to much wider frequency range than necessary. Yes - all class D amps produce some noise but it is in hundreds of kilohertz - non-audible and not in the FM or TV bandwidth. Any amplifier produces switching noise - even class A or tubes. It comes from power supply (sharp current spikes repeated 120Hz).

As for D100 - it is very good amp. Stereophile says that is "going head to head with an amp as good as the Coda S5". (good class A amp).

Reading your post one would think that D100 is bad sounding or very noisy.