Looking to upgrade my very modest integrated amp with Class D, which I’ve never owned. This thread has been very informative, sometimes entertaining re: price vs performance/specs. Leaving my house a few days ago, I was behind a Ferrari at a red light. Ferrari broke down, I had to go around in my Subaru Outback. My analogy being pretty sure Ferrari has better specs on paper vs my Subaru but at a certain point Ferrari requires a dedicated race track and a professional driver to experience what that car can do.
Not clear you have the right thread for this analogy. Might work if you had a DIY Subaru.
Even then, as good as the performance may be, the state of Class D amps (like the Hypex in this thread) is not at all like a high-performance car in my opinion. In seeking performance, those cars are often sacrificing long term reliability to achieve beyond the usual level of performance. That is not the case with a Nilai or any other comparable Class D amplifier. For that matter, you are not paying the same degree of premium either.
While not as common in consumer audio as yet, Class D has been used in professional amps for decades. Hypex has had UCD (Universal Class D) amplifiers for almost 2 decades. If you are working with a modest budget, can find less expensive amps with UCD. NCore-based is the next level and you can get it from some mainstream brands or smaller companies (like Buckeye or Audiophonics and others).