05-09-13: SwampwalkerHi Michael,
I'd love to hear Atmasphere and Almarg comment about how that type of amplifier's inherent electrical characteristics interacts w speaker loads.
I'm not especially familiar with Class D amplifiers. But in terms of output impedance they are of course firmly in the voltage source camp, with some of them having extraordinarily low output impedances/high damping factors. In terms of feedback, I don't have a particular feel for how much negative feedback most of them use, but I'd imagine that it is not insignificant in most cases.
An exception would apparently be the ARC amps that have switching output stages. Those are described as using no global feedback, and are spec'd as having 1% THD. Which would seem to raise the possibility that their behavior is somewhat tube-like.
Also, the Spectron writeups on their Musician III indicate that although negative feedback is used its adverse effects are claimed to be essentially eliminated as a result of the fact that transit time (aka propagation delay) through the signal path is exceptionally fast. I see no reason to doubt that claim.
As I say, though, I have no particular knowledge of the degree to which feedback may be employed, and the degree to which it may be an issue sonically, with Class D in general.
05-09-13: BombaywallaI believe that Ralph was referring here to speakers that are designed per power paradigm principles, not to amplifiers. One of his underlying points is that both must be designed in accordance with the same paradigm, if they are to work well with each other.
"In the Power Paradigm the box design puts the peak at a lower frequency to take advantage of the extra energy- but again netting fairly flat frequency response, but with the additional benefit of bass extension, which might well be up to half an octave."
Atmasphere, what does this mean? The box resonance peak is where it is. How does the Power Paradigm amplifier move that peak to a lower frequency?
05-09-13: BifwynneTruer words were never spoken :-)
I've picked some LP dogs that are so bad, the neighborhood dogs howl. And I don't think that's because of NF or impedance peaks or negative phase angles. Some recorded music just stinks.
Best regards,
-- Al