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Digital, Low Mass, ClassD, Less expensive, Let it happen!

Well here we are! Not that you can't go back and buy boat anchors, but now we know sound is better with low mass designs. Digital source? Yep, the tide has turned. ClassD amplification is also here to stay. Lower mass speakers, on their way back too. The audiophile hobby is getting less expensive and better sounding.

I guess we can debate this, but it's happening anyway. The hobby is simply growing up and becoming more aware of how to get great sound, and get it smart. There has been a lot of myths passed down when we only had paperback magazines, mostly for marketing, but the internet has finally caught up with audio reality. Instead of $20,000.00 components we have $20,000.00 whole systems (including all the trimming). Shoot, there are $5,000.00 systems that excel. The Trade Shows are changing, the market is changing and we are changing. Want to stay old school? No problem, there will always be old school and plenty of used gear (at least for our lifetimes). There will also be smaller niche companies that spring up to tempt us.

The hobby is entering a new era for the extreme listener. It will be a hobby of doing and exploring Electrical, Mechanical and Acoustical as equals. Components will be much smaller and more flexible, and more time will be spent on playing our whole music collection, and not just a few recordings. Many HEA debates will be making their way to the archives as the hobby grows closer to mainstream. Mainstream as in higher quality audiophile mainstream.

Are you ready? I sure am!

Michael Green


http://www.michaelgreenaudio.net/

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Showing 1 response by whitestix

whitestix
684 posts
 
I abandoned tubes amps (HK CII and CV) some years ago, but having heard a very fine 65 wpc KT88 tube amp recently driving my OB speakers with a 12 ohm impedance, I am swinging back in that direction.  Of course a tube amp is de rigueur, in my opinion, but there is such magic in a powerful tube amp that my SS amp can't reproduce.  Flea watt tube amps make no sense to me.   I demo'd a couple of mid-fi Class D amps  a while back and they initially sounded quite good, but after a time, I felt that I was missing something, the something being found immediately when I swapped back my Class A/B amp into the system.  Maybe the higher-end Class D amps are as musical as other Class A, Class A/B and tube amps, but they are out of my price range. 

MG's point is well taken that Class D amps are the wave of the future and I think they will figure it out, but at the moment I am going back to a tube amp myself.  One reason I abandoned the HK Citation amps was the PITA of biasing them.  With modern tube amps, it is a simple process, indeed.  Plus, there are a sufficient number of new tubes available that pretty much give NOS tubes are run for their money.
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