My understanding was class D never really took off, despite the power efficiency due to the HF noise caused by the PWM. Times change things improve but I can’t find much about how they have mitigated this, in fact an article in EETimes refers to how the tests performed for THD etc are quite irrelevant in a digital amp and quoted figures may be very different in real life. In essence, the way of testing makes them look better than they are. This may be true but do they sound good? We all know vinyl is technically an inferior medium but I certainly prefer it’s sound.
@nosleeptilldownload Your impression above is incorrect. Class D really took off and is used nearly everywhere.
What makes an amplifier musical or not is its distortion and nothing else! Literally the distortion signature of any amplifier is also its ’sonic signature’. The trick to getting an amplifier to sound musical (for example many tube amplifiers) is to have a benign distortion signature which the ear does not find irritating.
Since this is all about understanding that fact and also engineering, its possible to build an amp that will sound like music if you have the expertise.
Cutting to the bottom line there are class D amps out there that sound every bit as musical as the best class A tube or solid state amps. Because you’ve not heard an example of that yet does not mean they do not exist! IME class D amps vary as much in sound as tube amps do- from the worst to the very best.
I’ve been playing a set of class D amps in my own system the last 2 years and do not miss the class A triode tube amps they replaced at all.
