Oh how I wish Class D amps ...

Dan92075, class D amps need patience to bring out their best. Or, you can copy my recipe. ;-)

I have found what you say is the opposite of truth. That is, A/AB amps, with zero global feedback, distort the transients, not the best class D amps. The well tuned ICE amps will have no audible distortion, and will dig deeper into the CD than ever thought possible.

I think I have been more than patient with ICE amps, including changing around my interconnects, power cables, speaker cables, even preamps to get the ICE amps to sound better! And tried several ICE amps to boot!

Don't get me wrong - the detail was not poor by any means - it was fairly good overall - but somehow there was something missing on higher frequency transients that created an ever-so-slight digital, plasticky sound.
When I did a comparison between the state-of-the art latest Ice amp (Bel Canto 500m) and a 8 year old Sim Audio Class A/AB amp with zero global feed back - there was simply no contest. Especially at low volume levels I found the Bel Canto would compress and sound anything but audiophile, whereas the SimAudio operating in Class A mode managed to retain most of its nuances, just at quieter levels.

I honestly don't know what else I could have done to bring out the best in the ICE amps. . . if you have a special recipe I sure would be interested to know! :)

Ok, Dan92075, what CD players did you try? On my system all oversamplers failed miserably, especially in their highs. I use a 47 Lab Flatfish transport and a much improved Audio Note DAC. I cannot stress how important that is.

All speaker cables that are not nearly bare will flood the signal with noise. All power cords must be fully insulated against EMI. Saying that, only my speaker cables made the ultimate difference for me. They are ultra thin metal ribbons. I use Speltz ICs because what he says on his site is right on.

None but one solid state preamp will do their best with class D. The rest will diminish the music. Tube preamps do much better. It is a mismatch thing. There is one solid state preamp made especially to match class D, and that is the H2O Fire preamp. That is what I use. It will kick ass the sound into a music that shows flow and big impact.

I can go into great detail, but not here. Drop me an email if you are still interested.

See my friend's comments above.

>>02-20-11: Muralman1
None but one solid state preamp will do their best with class D.<<

That is so lame.

How would you know that only one solid state preamp will work best for everyone?

That is true only for you and you alone.

There are many more experienced and knowledgable listeners/manufacturers/audio engineers/retailers outside of the muralworld.

You need to get out more.

LOL

Audiofeil, you know how low ICE impedance runs. Solid state preamps have great trouble with this. It is not just my opinion that most solid state preamps deteriorate the sound. That is why people use DAC volume, and others line level preamps. Tube preamps are fine.