Really? This is quite shocking cause i always thought that was the greatest hindrance. For someone like Denon that can whip out a class AB amplifier for peanuts because there are no royalties or licensed chips involved i always thought it is cheaper for them not to go class D.
Price per watt might come into play if they considered distribution costs as well as production costs, especially given high transport fuel costs. AB amps are heavy and bulky.
But I'll bet most of the cost of an AVR is in the software (including licensing), all those myriad of physical connections, and the pretty case. The amps are just a stock design thrown in. I'll bet the costs for the typical consumer AVR are ten bucks or less per channel for the amplifier. Even the lower-line Hypex UCD amps are much more than that. I suspect that at lower price points, chip amps are the future.
For higher-end AVRs, their price points might justify more care in the selection of the amp.
We are used to excellent Class D amps being cheaper than excellent AB amps because we are buying Class D amps from specialist producers with build-to-order absence of carried inventory, low margins, and a very sparse distribution network. There's no way Dylan's Buckeye amps, for example, could sell at his price points if the exact same product was produced by, say, Denon, who would be expected to float a vast inventory through a range of distribution middlemen covering, say, every Best Buy in the country. I would expect them to cost three times as much, at least.
Rick "software obsolescence begs for separate amps and connection panels instead of integrated AVRs, however, even at low price points" Denney
