Who tried Class D only to return to S/S or Tube

If there was a way to plug in a speaker or headphone directly into the CD Media itself with nothing else in the chain you will most likely arrive at the same sound today's modern Class D is capable of given an equally transparent Preamp,cabling and speaker. As an example, the noise floor on the Hypex modules lies almost as low as many of todays SOA D/A converters and way below the majority of PreAmps on the market. Going D/A direct or having a very good $$$ Pre is pretty much a requirement if you don't wish to hear those devices influence at the output.

I used to own some very popular Class A & A/B amps in the past and then one day decided to try Class D despite hearing all the negative impressions from folks who are heavily invested in tubes & classic Class A/A/AB amps. I will admit that it took me a while to get my mind and ears around what I was hearing. The presentation was VERY different with a modern Class D design (I have used Hypex NC400 & NC1200 exclusively). The stripped down and crystal clear output via the Class D amps can indeed be too much change for many people to bare.

The truth is, once you get past this sonic change in presentation and begin to hear your music thru a much cleaner lens it then opens the door to adding your Salt/Pepper seasoning in much smaller doses to suite your final taste.

In most cases this Salt and Pepper can be introduced via cabling & isolation tweaks instead of via a sledge hammer by way of using inherently "warm" components that add too much seasoning to the point of being so far from the sound of the original media that its not even funny. This is especially true when you consider the combined total of seasoning added by component, cabling, tweaks, speakers and what ever else you can imagine.

Personally I like having a totally neutral set of main components that remain true to the source and then add my flavoring via cables and isolation as needed. Understandably folks like myself are the minority in this hobby and in the end as long as we all enjoy what we are hearing it doesn't matter how you get there.

Hi ENIAC, your post could not be timelier. On Friday 11th, Marc Mickelson of The Audiobeat, posted his review of the Rowland M825 stereo amp, which sports  those very class D NCore NC1200 modules that you have experienced in your system.

Marc's findings are based on prolonged use of the amp in his system,, which protracted for a number of months... Yes, I estimate the device to have been fully broken in.

He appears to concur with your opinion that appreciation of musical neutrality in high achieving class D amps may require a paradigmatic shift for some audio lovers, away from some much beloved traditional warm sound.

Amongst other things, he expresses the following thoughts in his conclusions...

"Such a peripheral line of reasoning underscores what is very best about the Model 825 -- and potentially any great piece of audio equipment: it makes you forget that you're listening to a complicated and expensive audio system. This is more than the ability to suspend disbelief; it's a disarming of critical faculties, even when you're trying to be critical and unravel what you're hearing. In my experience tubes do this more readily than solid state, and class D almost never does it. The Model 825 does it as a matter of course -- it can't not do it -- and it happens not because of one or two or three of the sonic traits I discuss above, but all of them, in their exact proportions. If the Model 825 were somehow more natural, bordering on romantic, or more round and rosy, especially through the mids, it would be a different amp and perhaps a very good one, but not a great one. And the Model 825 is a great amp -- in numerous ways, greater than any amp I've heard. It speaks not just in its own voice but in a voice I always wanted to hear, such is the pull, at least for me, of the utterly clear yet composed way it reveals all that's on each recording."

http://www.theaudiobeat.com/equipment/jeff_rowland_model_825.htmSaluti,

As for Marc's caveat that "class D almost never does it", I respectfully disagree with him... And suggest that listening to a broad range of current high performing class D amps tends to reveal that class D in general has the same chance of sounding great or horrid as any other topology.   

Guido