Time to buy a class D amp?



Will some new class D amplifiers outperforming the current ones appear soon

(the newest ones i know were released a  few years ago)?

Class D amps attract me as I consider them the most ecological ones with obvious non-auditionable benefits.

I have no doubts that they posses the maximum ratio performance/sound quality among the amplifiers of all classes.

At the same time, the sound quality the class D amplifiers that I have auditioned produce, although is quite good,

but not yet ideal (for my taste).


I use PS Audio Stellar S300 amp with PS audio Gain Cell pre/DAC with Thiel CS 3.6 speakers in one of my systems.

The sound is ok (deep bass, clear soundstage) but not perfect (a bit bright and somehow dry, lacking warmness which might be more or less ok for rock but not for jazz music).

I wonder if there are softer sounding class D amps with the same or better details and resolution. Considering two reasonable (as to the budget) choices for test, Red Dragon S500 and Digital Audio Company's

Cherry  2 (or Maraschino monoblocks), did anybody compare these two?



128x128niodari
Just no. Thin and uninvolving are the characteristics of class D, plus noisy as heck.
musicloversaudio: "Just no. Thin and uninvolving are the characteristics of class D, plus noisy as heck."

musicloversaudio,

     Just your "noisy as heck" comment demonstrates you are either just making things up or have absolutely no experience listening to class D. Virtually all class D amps have extremely low distortion and are the exact opposite of "noisy as hell", they are the least noisy of all existing amp types by a wide margin. Everyone who has ever heard class D will concede this because it’s so obvious, music emerges from an inky black, dead silent background.  I thought everyone already knew this is one of the main characteristics of class D
     What exactly is your problem?

Tim


noble100
"demonstrates you are either just making things up or have absolutely no experience....they are the least noisy of all existing amp types by a wide margin. Everyone who has ever heard class D will concede this...What exactly is your problem?

Perhaps his "problem" is that "everyone" does not agree with your opinion, assessment, or reasoning and you can insist that you are correct and try to insult others into agreeing with you and so the "problem" is in you’re refusal to properly acknowledge, accept, and reconcile with those with who you do not find yourself in complete agreement.

I've heard Class 'D' and think it's ironic that it's Class 'D' because a 'D' or an 'F' is what it deserves IMO..
Post removed 
Well, in my experience, my current class D amp is ultra dead silent, and not so much (by a wide margin) my last two class A valve amps, one of them a more expensive 300B valve amp.

This much better signal to noise ratio of my class D amp makes it sound much cleaner and with less grain. Highs sound smoother on it because of that. 

Thin? Well, if you get the right gear to feed it (AC Power, DAC, correct digital signal processing, neutral to warm preamp, etc) you can get a very detailed sound, with amazing soundstage and dynamics, with out losing smoothness, body and tone, at all.

Im sure you can get good sound with class A amp, but you also can do it with a good class D amp, at better price in most cases. Also lighter in weight, cooler at running temperature and with less energy consumption.