Has anyone switched from Class AB/A to Class D? Was it better? Was it worse?


I heard a class D amp the other day (Lyngdorf) and it sounded really good. I liked the minimalism of it also. But, I need to own a amp for a couple of months to really know if I like it or not. I don't like room correction ether, so I just liked the sound without that. 

Curious, has anyone ever switched from a class AB or class A amp to a class D amp? If so, did you regret it? Was it a downgrade in sound? Or was it upgrade in sound? 

 

dman777

in my 40y + sound works I haven’t seen such speaker, with purely resistive load (2/4/6/8/12/16)! In order to design output filter properly, we need to take complex model of loading, including variety of speaker cables, DC protection relay ckt, speaker crossover, spkr driver/s complex, often resonating impedances, which is tremendous engineering task!

@westcoastaudiophile Actually its far simpler than that. A good class D amp can double power into a 4 Ohm load like any good class A or AB amp. There's no concern if the load isn't resistive! This is a no worries situation WRT the output filter.

In our case the amp is self oscillating, which means it also employs a lot of feedback. This prevents problems with capacitive or other odd loads causing resonance or the like- the amp is very well behaved with such loads as is any self-oscillating class D and so will be load invariant.

OP:  I have not really switched... I have A/B amp with tube pre-amp separates in one system and D integrated in another system. To my ears they both sound excellent with the A/B having a bit better control over the bass.

But it really stinks for me to buy them without hearing them.

This happens often in our hobby. 

Even with the 30 day return period. 

This seems like a very fortunate option vs being stuck with unsatisfactory expensive components