@klh007, As you posted above, @ddafoe's System details says he owns the Meitner MA3 DAC.
Atma-Sphere Class D… Amazing
Today I picked up my Atma-Sphere Class D Amps. These aren’t broken in yet. And they are simply amazing. I’ve listen to a lot of High End Class D. Some that cost many times what Atma-Sphere Class D costs. I wasn’t a fan of any of them. But these amps are amazing. I really expected to hate them. So my expectations were low. The Details are of what I’ve never heard from any other amps. They are extremely neutral. To say the realism is is extremely good is a gross understatement. They are so transparent it’s scary. These amps just grab you and suck you into the music. After I live with them some and get them broken in. And do some comparisons to some other high end Amps Solid State, Tubes and Class D’s, also in other systems I’ll do a more comprehensive review. But for now, these are simply amazing amps.. Congrats to Ralph and his team. You guys nailed on these.
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@ddafoe in my system I found the Atma-Sphere Class D was slightly better than the Pass XA30.8. I am hoping soon to put the XA 60.8’s in my system soon. And will be trying them a friends system with the XA60.8’s. But that’s my system and a few of us opinions. We had shared to the Atma-Sphere was slightly better all the way around. Was the your perspective in your system? |
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Your first statement above isn't correct. Amplifier designers do not limit their designs on account of a limitation in loudspeakers- everyone I know in the business, whether tube or solid state, is trying to wring the most performance out of their product that they can. Amps aren't perfect for their own reasons, for example no-one is going to ever get rid of distortion no matter the speaker. IME/IMO when you try to work synergies in your system you wind up with more distortion. For example bright amplifiers are often so due to unmasked higher ordered harmonics; they might get paired with dull speakers in an attempt to be tonally neutral. Since the brightness comes from distortion rather than a frequency response error the result is often less than stellar- there will be some musical cuts that will bring out the weakness in this approach sooner or later! Better that each bit in the system stand on its merits rather than its weaknesses.
FWIW our pricing tends to be less expensive than our competition because we price to a formula rather than what the market will bear. You really have to just actually price everything out. Don't forget to include labor (and all that comes with that); all the work including the board assemblies is done by hand. You can see from the splash page on our website what that is about. A class D amp is a very different thing from a tube amplifier but once you understand the differences (for example, surface mount components) you can see that craftsmanship is still a thing.
The gain of the class D and the input impedance (100K balanced or single-ended) are both easy for any preamp made. |
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