I went from Class D to Luxman A/AB - And most of what you think is wrong

And this, folks, is why this hobby is in a death spiral. Stupidly expensive gear with adherents that can "hear" all sorts of artifacts and distortions which they focus on to the detriment of enjoying the music. Had a very interesting chat with my 30 year old software engineering son. He questioned why anyone would spend the kind of money high end companies charge to listen to music. His generation looks upon this hobby as a total waste of time and resources, and that is the future of audio. Go to RMAF or any of the other big shows and take note of what you see. For the most part, a bunch of 60 something white guys with more money (sometimes) than sense. Class A, Class A/B, Class D, Class G, ad nauseum.

Not sure I agree with all of this. Go to Munich and watch for the young families with strollers and under 30 years men and women. Its quite different in Europe and Asia!

Regarding distortions- anyone can hear distortion since the ear uses higher ordered harmonics to sense sound pressure. Traditional solid state amps are well-known for making such harmonics and being quite audible as harshness and brightness. This is why tubes still exist!

Kids these days buy LPs- hence the revival of the medium- kids keep the music industry alive! Whether they are conscious of it or not, they are hearing something in the LPs that they like as opposed to digital. You don't have to know anything technical to understand that.


I see people of all ages at RMAF and AXPONA but admit that younger people are a minority. What works for kids is the same as it was for us old people- that its relevant to our lives. When they hear music reproduction that sucks they just stick with their earbuds. When the reproduction is good, then they dream of the day when they can have that sound at home. The latter is what happened to a lot of us older audiophiles. The shows are there so the public (and hopefully kids) can feel the dream.


Regarding class D, the carrot on the stick is that a class D output section does not have the same sort of artifact that is imposed by the output section of a traditional solid state amp. The distortion made by the amp is thus caused by the encoding scheme, whatever is needed to drive the encoder (and some comparitors have pretty low input impedances, so this is not a trivial matter) and how much deadtime is needed to keep the output transistors happy. As switching transistors get faster (the current embodiment of speed being GaN devices) the deadtime needed is reduced and with it the distortion of the amp.

And this, folks, is why this hobby is in a death spiral. Stupidly expensive gear with adherents that can "hear" all sorts of artifacts and distortions ...

Nice try, but high end audio is not in a "death spiral." It's evolving, which is exactly what keeps it from being in a death spiral. If you don't like audiophiles, then maybe you shouldn't hang around here where audiophiles often congregate.

@glennewdick -
I disagree with your assessment about Rowland’s amps and comparing them to the numerous brands that simply take an existing Class D module with its stock SMPS and stick it in a cheap chassis. JR designs and builds his own proprietary SMPS which are actually very expensive to implement correctly and then integrates those power supplies with various Class D output stages which he selects for their sonic performance. His SMPS outperforms most linear power supplies and avoid creating the AC line noise which lesser designs inject on the power line. His chassis construction is exceptional, with most models having aluminum billet chassis which are expertly machined and masterfully finished.
Granted his amps are not inexpensive, but their level of engineering and build quality are exceptional as is their sonic performance. Quality of that level comes at a price... of course there are cheaper implementations of Class D amps which are quite popular but are not competitive with the performance of the Rowlands despite some circuit similarities. There is a market for both types of products, more value oriented amps and cost no object designs for more demanding audiophiles.

As far as I can tell high end audio is more of a rat race than ever as there are many more manufacturers looking for a piece of the pie. The marketing is getting progressively more obnoxious.  Kids appreciate good sound like the rest of us. They go to concerts and are quite capable of discriminating between great and not so great sound. But, life in general is more expensive than ever and megabuck HiFi systems are not on their priority list. Later in life they are sure to join in as finances allow. They are also more likely to include theater in the equation as well as vinyl which I find very interesting. I think we are analog creatures at heart. There is nothing like the warm glow of tubes. That is an instinctive attraction. 
As far as class D amps are concerned I think TACT was on the right path with an amp that encoded in pulse width modulation and sampled at 90 meg. They were very clean sounding amps with solid bass but they did not like reactive loads at all. I have never heard a Rowland amp but obviously someone is paying close attention to build quality. I have no doubt that Class D amps will become very competitive with other amps in regards to sound quality. Back in the late 60s we all thought that SS amps were garbage because they were. A decade or two later and they came into their own and many of us think they are superior. The efficiency of class D is what I find so attractive. Turning money into heat is counter productive especially when you spend more money air conditioning it out of the house. 
After all it is all about enjoying the music right? Silly. We all love music or we would not be doing this. HiFi is all about reproducing the music but to what standard? There really is not one or rather we all have our own standard which evolves over time. But I can say that in the presence of a truly great system jaws drop and there is very little criticism. I love it when my jaw drops.

cleeds, you are absolutely right.  I apologize to the group for my stupid remark.  Pain meds and keyboards do not a match make.