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Dynaudio Heritage Special
- Thread starter watchnerd
- Start date
That’s nice to know, I’m not anti class D or anything else. I was just messing with Watchnerd. However I’m not an electrical engineer nor do I pretend to be.
Helicopter
Major Contributor
It is nice to know, but it is not quite correct. the Benchmark AHB2 is the #1 amp measured here, it is AB, and it is substantially better than the class d amps lower down the podium. Everything below the AHB2 at the top is class D though.
Edit: not that it actually maters much for sound. Devialet and Accuphase should both sound great.
Amir can hear infrasonic things??
But I can induce audible-range bass IMD with infra sonic harmonic components via my bass guitar, anyway.
Low F# is 23 Hz.
Amir may well be able to hear infrasonic things, but this was not implied by anything I know of. To clarify, there is compelling reason to hypothesize that the driver was pushed nearly to one extreme of its travel by a strong DC component contained within the music file, and that the poor thing was trying to dance to the music while the nominal position of the diaphragm was such that the coil was teetering at exiting the gap, and that this was the reason for the distortion that Amir heard. No one seemed motivated to follow through on the question and open up dialog on whether music with a strong DC (or infrasonic) component is a reasonable test for any speaker. Andrew Jones tested the speaker according to usual protocol, and it seems that he ignored the information garnered here by Amir and several others who participated in the haphazard analysis. No conclusive answer was ever reached with respect to the question of whether the strong DC component within the music file was the cause per se of the anomalous behavior of the speaker, and there was no discussion of whether a file with a strong DC or infrasonic component should be considered fair game or verboten in the testing applied to a speaker. The episode left me scratching my head and wondering why people are strongly motivated to do things that raise questions but weakly motivated to follow through and answer the questions.
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Disagree, at least sonically. The class D amps will sound better at higher volumes than the Benchmark, and they will sound 100% the same at any level lower than that. That makes the Class D amps better sonically, imo.
Helicopter
Major Contributor
I just meant SINAD. I agree they will all sound the same when output isn't stressing them, which will be nearly all the time for most amps.
There's no reason to get Class D amps unless weight and heat is a serious concern. Class D amps all have rising distortion and have full scale IMD in the upper treble. You have to pay a ton of money for the good Class D though, but still doesn't hold a candle to good Class AB and Class A amps (which are still the gold standard). $10k for a Devialet seems utter madness to me.
Helicopter
Major Contributor
If you want power and SINAD, the Buckeye NC502MP is hard to beat. If you have the cash, a pair of Benchmark AHB2s is as good as it gets for performance.
I share @watchnerd s philosophy though. They mostly sound the same, and you rarely need power, so generally better to shop on features and aesthetics with amps.
I am open to trading any of my amps for an Accuphase.
I share @watchnerd s philosophy though. They mostly sound the same, and you rarely need power, so generally better to shop on features and aesthetics with amps.
I am open to trading any of my amps for an Accuphase.
GaN FET amplifiers look interesting, seems like it fixes the slew rate, ringing, switching frequency which remains in the audible frequency domain, bandwidth, noise floor, etc of other Class D implementations.
I had the Orchard Audio GaN Strarkrimson amplifiers for awhile, but they were still noisy and the detail wasn't all there. It had an unnatural "organic" like tone to it as well. AHB2 murdered it in detail (especially low level due to the ridiculously low noise floor), treble quality, soundstage, etc.
I had the Orchard Audio GaN Strarkrimson amplifiers for awhile, but they were still noisy and the detail wasn't all there. It had an unnatural "organic" like tone to it as well. AHB2 murdered it in detail (especially low level due to the ridiculously low noise floor), treble quality, soundstage, etc.
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I think that may have been true at one time, but not anymore. The best class D amps(Hypex/Purifi) have not only caught up, but have actually surpassed even the best class A and A/B designs(at least the ones tested so far). Lower distortion (not that distortion matters one bit at these low levels) and more power in a smaller size. More power is by far the most important metric for sound quality, and distortion is irrelevant since the levels of distortion we're talking about are an order of magnitude below human hearing thresholds. Still Hypex/Purifi have lower distortion than all but 1(Benchmark) of the class A/Bs measured so far.
Class D is the new gold standard for amp sound quality at a given price point.
Ultimately, I don't think it matters that much. Amplifier sound quality(ignoring power) is less than 1% of the equation anyway.
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If you want power and SINAD, the Buckeye NC502MP is hard to beat. If you have the cash, a pair of Benchmark AHB2s is as good as it gets for performance.
I share @watchnerd s philosophy though. They mostly sound the same, and you rarely need power, so generally better to shop on features and aesthetics with amps.
I am open to trading any of my amps for an Accuphase.
I'm pretty much of the same opinion. If you don't listen super loud, aesthetics is probably the most important metric for perceived sound quality. Go for what looks best. That's the one that will sound the best
.
MakeMineVinyl
Major Contributor
Class D is certainly the future, and I would say for 90% if listeners, is probably the way to go. However, standard class A/B still has a place, and is in no way inferior to class D, and still bests it in some measured ways.
That said, as many on this forum are aware, even solid state has no place in my system other than to power my subwoofers (and that will probably be class D in time). I'm vacuum tube all the way, and class A single ended triode for the high frequencies above 500Hz. But then I have extremely efficient horns, so I'm an edge case if ever there was one.
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Kinda. I've been careful to say "sonically" or "sound quality". In terms of audible performance, class D Hypex/Purifi is the gold standard at those price points. The Benchmark measures slightly better, but that has no impact on sound quality, whereas the power difference does. They'll sound equal at low, moderate, loud, and very loud levels, while the class D's will sound better at "very very loud" levels
. They're also cheaper than the Benchmark, so overall definitely better (imo).Even if we're talking strictly measured performance, class D still occupies the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th place.
I don't really follow the amp market, so maybe I'm just not aware of the best value class A/B designs, but the ones I'm aware of aren't as good as the best class Ds(which is why I consider class D as the gold standard).
For example:
March Audio P701:
$1,400
400/700/1200 into 8/4/2
distortion well below human hearing
Given that they're perfect to below hearing threshold, the only way to "beat" them(knock them down to silver standard
) would be to offer more power for the same price, or offer the same power for a cheaper price. Are there really class A or A/B amps that do that?That said, as many on this forum are aware, even solid state has no place in my system other than to power my subwoofers (and that will probably be class D in time). I'm vacuum tube all the way, and class A single ended triode for the high frequencies above 500Hz. But then I have extremely efficient horns, so I'm an edge case if ever there was one.
I think tubes(like Vinyl) have more of a place - going forward - than class A/B amps(or CDs) since they offer something different. They're not just a worse version of the same thing.
And again, I'm in camp "buy the thing that looks best" and is good enough. I think aesthetic bias likely has a larger impact on sound quality than distortion or power differences.
It absolutely is not. Many audiophiles run flea watt tube amps into high efficiency speakers. Most people in a home environment are using 5-15W at most. <1W is arguably the most important since most of your music detail is going to be below 1W and distortion in this area will affect harmonic content.
There's plenty of other amps that have distortion below human hearing, so who cares if Hypex/Purifi have lower distortion than say a Pass Labs amplifier. The problem with Class D is they have to be band limited and there is out of band switching.
There is not one attribute to rule them all. There is more than only distortion specs and its a gross oversimplification.
But you just said more power determines sound quality, so why ignore it?
Everything in the audio chain matters. From the transducers, to the amplification, to the source. Granted the transducers will largely shape how sound is reproduced, but the more resolving a speaker is, the more differences can be clearly heard upstream.
Yep, and then he got a taste of his own medicine. I don’t think he enjoyed it much, it’s always better to be kind.
The A/D hybrid is not like a class A/B where the amp is class A up to a certain power then crosses over to class-B.
It is class A at all powers. The class A amp defines the voltage and the (4 per channel running at different phases iirc) class D amps are controlled to supply the current, a bit along the lines of the much earlier Quad current dumping idea.
So effectively you have a 400+ watt class A amp performance without it running all that hot.
How hot they do run has varied with firmware updates IME.