@rhale64 I do get the buffer with the Sparkos opamp. Never heard Class d before and won’t have another opamp to compare it to. Will it be possible for me to listen to what Leo had in it originally and then use the Sparkos? Not sure how it works.
Expanding the Class D Conversation: How Would You Characterize Their Differences?
Expanding the Class D Conversation: How Would You Characterize Their Differences?
I'm currently trialing the NAD M23 (1st gen. Eigentakt-based), and I find it intriguing enough to want to understand it better — which means understanding the broader sonic landscape of class D. So I'm crowd-sourcing.
In a recent exchange, the estimable Ralph Karsten (Atma-Sphere Music Systems) made two comments that stopped me cold. For those who missed it, here's what he said:
"IME, class D amps vary in sound more than tube amps, which is to say, quite a lot."
"IMO there is a bigger difference between various class D amps than you hear between various tube amps. IOW just because you heard one class D amp says nothing about how the next one might sound."
Link: https://forum.audiogon.com/posts/2885828
As I think through this more carefully, these are genuinely important claims. My own experience with tube amps confirms that they produce audibly distinct characters across topologies and designs. If Ralph is right and class D exceeds that range, then generalizing from one class D experience to another is even more hazardous than I assumed.
One specific question for Audiogon members:
If you have a Class D amp or have compared class D amplifiers, how would you describe their character(s)?
Here are some criteria I use:
- Frequency balance — Is the tonal response even across bass, mids, and treble, or does it favor certain regions?
- High-frequency texture — Are the highs extended and smooth, or edgy, grainy, and fatiguing?
- Bass definition — Is the low end tight and articulate, or loose and bloated?
- Midrange character — Does the midrange feel present and natural, or recessed and thin?
- Transient speed — Does the amp respond quickly to dynamic attacks, or does it sound sluggish and rounded?
- Dynamic range — Does it scale convincingly from quiet passages to loud ones, or compress the difference?
- Soundstage width and depth — Does it create a convincing three-dimensional image, or sound flat and narrow?
- Image specificity — Are instruments and voices placed precisely, or do they blur and wander?
- Background noise floor — Is the silence between notes actually silent, or is there grain, haze, or hash?
- Long-term listenability — After an extended session, do you want to keep listening, or has something been quietly fatiguing you?
If you can include relevant system context — room, speakers, preamp — please do. Those variables will help me interpret what the amp itself is contributing.
I'm less interested in rankings than in understanding what Ralph mentioned, namely the [vast] range of sonic signatures class D is capable of. Eigentakt, Hypex, Pascal, Purifi, GaN-based, etc. — all fair game.
Price is no constraint here — I'm interested in the full range of what's out there.
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Last trial post, for anyone still hanging in there. 3/3/26 NAD M23 (v. 1) vs. AGD Audion III Mono Blocks
Overall: Over many tests, always using a very quiet and neutral solid-state preamp, and trying both my larger Beyma AMT tweeter/JBL drivers and the Fritz Carbon speakers: the AGD is a clear winner in virtually every category. I'm very curious about the Atmasphere amp, but to try it I'd have to buy it full price so I need to think more about it. It would be a logical next step.
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earthbound yes it should be doable. You can bypass them I am positive of that. I wouldn't want you to mess up Leo's amps because of me. I am sure you could ask him and see what he says. I know I heard them without the boards. My boards will be here tomorrow. I can see how they are and tell you how to do it. But I am worried if something happens with wires touching or something. |
@hilde45 , not that you need another amp to explore in this extraordinary journey you are documenting, but let me just give an initial reaction to the Gato DIA 400S NPM that i mentioned a while back. With only 6 days out of the box (the East Coast snow storm delayed its journey to Oregon), probably playing only 2 hours a day, it sounds great; huge improvement in every metric over the NAD M10 V2 it replaced. It makes the DALI Menuet SEs light up at every frequency, with far better dynamics, timbre and PRaT. (However, I can’t turn up its volume knob beyond 12 for fear of melting the Menuet’s drivers. Most of my listening is at 10 on its display or lower; 10 gets me to 60-65 dB or so.) Now, again, this could also be because of a superior streamer and DAC implementation, which it clearly has, but the net result is real sonic joy. Once it is burned in a bit more and i get the energy to do it, I want to put it in my dining room system and compare it to the CODA CSiB V2, with the equipment in that set-up. That will be a fairer measure of it just as amp. (Kresten Dinesen at GATO assured me that if you use the analog inputs on the 400S, it’s DAC is bypassed entirely.) This is the only Pascal design class D I have heard, but it makes me interested in hearing others. |
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