Are Affordable Class D Amps the Great Hope for Audio?

[TheWalkman]

Are inexpensive Class D Amps the Raspberry Pis and future, of the audio industry?

As I've alluded to in other threads, I really appreciate @amirm reviewing the low-end (read affordable) Class D amps like the Aiyima A07, using his finite time doing a lot of these reviews rather than some of the really obscure, boutique stuff, though I appreciate those efforts, as well.

Though I, too, salivate at some of the exotic stuff like the new Genelec 8381 (and have decided some time ago that I no longer need to spend crazy money on, say, a shiny McIntosh behemoth or a Benchmark amp when a Purify or Hypex based amp will out perform it for 75% less money), to me, the cutting edge of our hobby are these affordable, entry level products like Aiyima, SMSL, Fosi and even Topping.

More importantly, these entry level amps - and a pair of $300 bookshelf speakers - are a great way to get new folks into the hobby and ultimately keep the lights on at many of our favorite audio companies as they pursue their quest for the Holy Grail of Audio?

When I was a kid in the 70's, virtually all of my buddies were into stereos, car audio etc. Now, not so much. I expect many ASR folks, like me, are on the other side of 50 and when I talk to friends under 35, very few are interested in anything without earbuds or a low fidelity, Bluetooth connected speaker sitting on the kitchen counter. To them, cares about, "THD", whatever that even means...

Though there are many phenomenally cool high-end products on the market today, without gateway products like these Class Ds to fill the front end of the, "audiophile pipeline," is there enough latent demand to keep the industry viable for the next 25 years? That's the question in my mind.

This, in my mind, is analogous to what we've seen in Britain with the Raspberry Pi. I've read that there was a shortage of IT professionals entering the British market in the early 2000s because the kids had switched from playing with computers (BBC Micros, etc.) to video games. Kids no longer knew or cared, about programming. It's my understanding that one of the motivators behind introducing the Pi was to get a $35, fully functional single board computer into the hands of young folks and capture their interest while in their teens and fill the programming pipeline. I'm not British so I don't have first hand knowledge but based on the current backlog of RPs, something must be working.

Could these cheap, Class D amps be accomplishing the same thing by creating tomorrow's audiophiles today?

 

[wadude]

Are inexpensive Class D Amps the Raspberry Pis and future, of the audio industry?

Young people listen to lots of music but in general don't seem to care about the hardware hobby. My 40+ son has pulled together a nice system while my 30+ daughter and her same aged S.O. care a lot about music, but have no interest in the hardware. All are practicing and performing musicians and listen a lot. I don't think the cost of owning a system has anything to do about their choices of listening machinery. The industry will continue to exist regardless.

 

[Zensō]

I don’t think so. Sonos, AirPods, et al, are the present and future of audio. HiFi as a hobby is likely to continue its downward spiral into being an ultra-niche.

 

[fpitas]

I don’t think so. Sonos, AirPods, et al, are the present and future of audio. HiFi as a hobby is likely to continue its downward spiral into being an ultra-niche.

Yup. a younger friend has big horn speakers. His wife loves them, but one of his friends seeing them for the first time stared a while, then said they look like air-raid sirens. Kids these days!

 

[Ricardus]

Why does the audio space need a great hope?

I think inexpensive Class D amps are the future in general. Once all the dinosaurs die off who SWEAR class A sounds great because they can grill their kielbasa burger on the heat sinks, all that will be left will be Class D.

Eventually simple marketplace changes will force the "big guys" to do more Class D. And unless their Class D products can still support keeping the vintage products like the Kielbasa-275, in the catalog, they will disappear.

 

[fpitas]

Well, it would be a shame if the hobby devolved to the point where there was no profit in making good speakers, for example. It seems the big bucks are in importing cheap plastic lifestyle stuff.

 

[RayDunzl]

When I was a kid in the 70's, virtually all of my buddies were into stereos, car audio etc. Now, not so much.

I'd say Stereo was one of the few "high tech" products you could "be into" back then.

Name some others:

Uh...

Not everyone had a color TV or UHF channels or pushbutton landlines in 1970.

By the end of the decade primitive home computers had appeared and it all went downhill from rhere.

 

[Joe Smith]

Human nature and bragging rights being constant, I think the high end will survive, just a bit smaller. And I think things look pretty good on the cheap side of things, too.

The biggest audio downside I see these days is many homes not having a space that works well for audio. Smaller homes (which is where we need to go for global energy/climate reasons) often have these kitchen-dining-living combo spaces with lots of angles and glass that makes getting good placement nearly impossible.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Nowadays there are certainly diminishing returns for further improvements.

The kids nowadays can listen for little invest to very high quality music reproduction (digital, dac/phones, amps, speaker or headphones) in comparison to what we had available (mono cassette recorder, wobbly LP players, boomboxes etc) so I guess the motivation to strive for even more is much reduced today and in the future. What difference does it make if you have 120 vs 110THd as this will only “matter” to a smaller and smaller audience / niche.

My 2 cents (and no I can’t predict the future - yet ;-))

 

[Zensō]

I'd say Stereo was one of the few "high tech" products you could "be into" back then.

Name some others:

Uh...

Not everyone had a color TV or UHF channels or pushbutton landlines in 1970.

By the end of the decade primitive home computers had appeared and it all went downhill fromt rhere.

Agreed. Video and video games took the air out of audio as a form of focused, engaging entertainment. Now music serves more of a lifestyle supportive role for most.

 

[RayDunzl]

The kids nowadays can listen for little invest to very high quality music reproduction

I hope they can find some high qualify music to play.

 

[Zensō]

Well, it would be a shame if the hobby devolved to the point where there was no profit in making good speakers, for example. It seems the big bucks are in importing cheap plastic lifestyle stuff.

One way or the other, we’ll still have pro gear (Genelec, Neumann, etc.).

 

[HarmonicTHD]

I hope they can find some high qualify music to play.

If they look for it, I am sure they find one or the other piece

 

[DVDdoug]

When I was a kid in the 70's, virtually all of my buddies were into stereos, car audio etc. Now, not so much. I expect many ASR folks, like me, are on the other side of 50 and when I talk to friends under 35, very few are interested in anything without earbuds or a low fidelity, Bluetooth connected speaker sitting on the kitchen counter. To them, cares about, "THD", whatever that even means...

The culture is different but the quality of digital audio is better than anything we had in the analog days. And that includes lossy MP3 or Bluetooth, etc. The hobby just isn't as interesting as it used to be. The same thing happened with photography as a hobby. Speakers, headphones, and in-ears still make a difference. And amplifier power is still important, but I remember when 100W was a "big deal". My cheap AVR has 80W x 5 channels (probably class-D) and my subwoofers have more than 100W.

 

[Zensō]

I hope they can find some high qualify music to play.

There seems to be more, easy to access, high quality music now than there ever has been. Literally 100 million songs in your pocket, and now with lossless/hi-res quality.

 

[Waxx]

The mainstream is moving fast to class D now the quality is high enough to convince everybody but some nerds. But just like tube amps did not dissappear, class A and AB will also stay, but in a niche.

And yes, you got many younger people into hifi also, but they are less prone to those snake oil stories, as info is availeble here and on more and more sites and they know how to research the web to find it. Which does not mean they don't want tube amps or vinyl, but they know more what it does and doesn't on objective level.

Last weekend there was a dub festival (dub is electronic remixed reggae and very popular in Europe) here in Belgium where the head act on the first day of the festival was a tube amp based sound system, and the tube amp based hardware was on the flyer, as a part of the act. All know that soundsystem is not neutral, it's very coloured but they like it for that. It's not what everybody does (most use powersoft or crown class D amps) or what gives the most clear or powerfull sound and nobody (not even the owner) will claim that. But that is not what matters, it gives a vibe that no class D powered sound can do. That is how most young people that i know see tube amps or class A amps. They are very pragmatic in that (in both senses), not like here.

 

[Doodski]

With billions of globally available customers there is always a low end and high end in Hi-Fi. In the 80s and 90s it used to be Canadian $200 was the low end limit for a brand name receiver with discreet outputs or STK IC output. Canadian $450+ was the magical price point for receivers and grunty amps started at about $799 for a integrated. Not much has changed other than now we have Aiyimas and their power supplies to chose from. Things have actually become more techy for some folks that otherwise would not be interested.

 

[TheWalkman]

I don't see quality as being of any importance. As has been mentioned, that characteristic is foreign to many listeners now.



I see ^^ that ^^ as being the key. People need to be interested in music. The "industry", if there is one for very long, depends on interest, on engagement and on evolution of tastes and fashions.

If they have that, then Class-D-or-not-Class-D is of no importance. If that interest doesn't exist, then Class-D-or-not-Class-D is still of no importance. Either way, Class D is just a very, very small piece in a very, very large puzzle.

Jim

Jim,

I don’t mean to imply that Class D technology will explicitly attract newbies to the hobby but implicitly: this affordable technology lowers the cost of entry for curious folks who would not otherwise spend between $250 - $400 for a 50 watt, first amp/ receiver as they would have 20 or more years ago.

Thinking about this, seeing Apple “Q- Tips” everywhere I look, I wonder what the sales numbers for over the ear headphones look like for the past five years. Something tells me they aren’t good.

 

[Doodski]

Jim,

I don’t mean to imply that Class D technology will explicitly attract newbies to the hobby but implicitly: this affordable technology lowers the cost of entry for curious folks who would not otherwise spend between $250 - $400 for a 50 watt, first amp/ receiver as they would have 20 or more years ago.

Thinking about this, seeing Apple “Q- Tips” everywhere I look, I wonder what the sales numbers for over the ear headphones look like for the past five years. Something tells me they aren’t good.

I see over the ear headphones everyday out there in a city of ~1 million. Especially Beats and Sony stuff.

 

[fpitas]

I could be wrong, but I think the main ones who are excited about class D are the pro audio sorts. Most normal people wouldn't know class D if it fell on their foot. Or care.