Lol, Nico, I was even more wicked, I rigged one up, via the 3W amp of a decomissioned set of PC speakers, (it will fit in like 3 matchboxes), driving Goodmans axioms. The little transformer is so small the LED flashes at peaks, but it gets LOUD.
There are numerous other from many manufacturers like Oink Onkyo A-9555 - Integrated Digital Amplifier | Model Information | Onkyo USA Home Theater Products
I am not a subscriber to digital amps, but find that people just say things without first looking around.
Ultimately the output of an amp is analogue, what we see, hear and feel has to be analogue, unless you can teach your brain to receive digital information and convert it to an analogue experience.
Not to mention the Tripath amps...
For those of you in doubt about how good switching amps can sound, but are afraid of building things, check out VirtueAudio or RedWineAudio's offerings. They are easily a match for most class A or SET amps under $5K USD... many, many "purists" have been surprised by these, and for good reason.
The better news: you can make your own.
If you're in the DIY mode, you can actually put together astonishingly good amps from Sure Electronics, Hifimediy, Arjen Helder or 41Hz.com, usually for under $100 USD !!
Thats right, under ONE hundred USD for superb sounding amps. The Sure and Hifimediy TK2050 implementations will actually cost you less than $50!!
The bad news: many people won't give them a chance because their minds are already made up.
It's sadly true... because many class D amps do indeed sound sterile, there has been a tendency to lump 'em all into that that bin. That's a sad mistake, similar to saying that all class AB amps sound distorted and bad. Clearly untrue. Some of these so called T-amps, like the Virtue and RedWine Audio offerings, really transcend that whole sterile thing and sound really and truly musical. Top shelf quality for sure.
I wasn't all that convinced meself before conducting extensive listening tests vs the Virtue amps and concluding that even my truly excellent modded Moscodes (tube/mosfet hybrids) were not quite as good...oops...so I took the lil' Virtue amp to a friends house to compare against his $15,000+ Cary super-customized SET which sported dual 14" tubes! And yes, the Cary was better.. but only by a little bit! My friend was utterly astonished by the sheer musicality of the Virtue.
Not convinced yet? Don't be! It's just my words and opinions! My hearing is very good, and so are my opinions... but that's just my opinion.....🙂
However, before passing judgement, you could invest $50 USD in a Sure or Hifimediy amp and listen for yourself. Then look at the threads on this site dedicated to tweaking these and possibly play around with good input caps....just try it and then be ready to be very pleasantly astonished.
Rather than rely on other peoples' comments and ideas and half-baked dogmas (is that a hot dog ma?), you could easily find out for yourself.
Try it. DIY....You might enjoy the journey!
The good news: Class D is alive and kicking.
For those of you in doubt about how good switching amps can sound, but are afraid of building things, check out VirtueAudio or RedWineAudio's offerings. They are easily a match for most class A or SET amps under $5K USD... many, many "purists" have been surprised by these, and for good reason.
The better news: you can make your own.
If you're in the DIY mode, you can actually put together astonishingly good amps from Sure Electronics, Hifimediy, Arjen Helder or 41Hz.com, usually for under $100 USD !!
Thats right, under ONE hundred USD for superb sounding amps. The Sure and Hifimediy TK2050 implementations will actually cost you less than $50!!
The bad news: many people won't give them a chance because their minds are already made up.
It's sadly true... because many class D amps do indeed sound sterile, there has been a tendency to lump 'em all into that that bin. That's a sad mistake, similar to saying that all class AB amps sound distorted and bad. Clearly untrue. Some of these so called T-amps, like the Virtue and RedWine Audio offerings, really transcend that whole sterile thing and sound really and truly musical. Top shelf quality for sure.
I wasn't all that convinced meself before conducting extensive listening tests vs the Virtue amps and concluding that even my truly excellent modded Moscodes (tube/mosfet hybrids) were not quite as good...oops...so I took the lil' Virtue amp to a friends house to compare against his $15,000+ Cary super-customized SET which sported dual 14" tubes! And yes, the Cary was better.. but only by a little bit! My friend was utterly astonished by the sheer musicality of the Virtue.
Not convinced yet? Don't be! It's just my words and opinions! My hearing is very good, and so are my opinions... but that's just my opinion.....🙂
However, before passing judgement, you could invest $50 USD in a Sure or Hifimediy amp and listen for yourself. Then look at the threads on this site dedicated to tweaking these and possibly play around with good input caps....just try it and then be ready to be very pleasantly astonished.
Rather than rely on other peoples' comments and ideas and half-baked dogmas (is that a hot dog ma?), you could easily find out for yourself.
Try it. DIY....You might enjoy the journey!
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Or from classDaudio for a few dollars more. And like the Class A amps to which they sonically compare they don't exhibit the bane of many analog designs, crossover distortion. I'm sure there will always be people out there spending thousands for analog space heaters and granite turntables on air bearings, and there's probably a blog out there somewhere devoted to how much better movies look on a Trinitron picture tube. It's to laugh about, not to get too exercised about . . .
I spent plenty of time listening to the then ground breaking 'Icepower' amplifiers way back when and came to the conclusion that they are nice but not quite ideal...
How do modern D amps compare ?.
Eric.
How do modern D amps compare ?.
Eric.
The way I see it:
The mid fi manufacturers will keep making digital amps, if only for one reason, iron = money. Most people are buying home theatre recievers which are up to usually 7 to 9 channels at 100 watts each. Even if they do the usual cheat of only putting out half the full power, thats 450 watts audio power. If it was class AB you'ld need at least a 1kw power transformer. 10 lbs of heat sink and a chassis thats big and strong enough.
Then you need to make a profit at wholesale prices of $400, including shipping 100lbs half way around the world.
As far as the price of complicated and harder to design units. If you spread the cost over 10,000 units it will be a lot less than the extra shipping costs AB would incur.
And if they are making them they will continue R&D and some of it will make the amps better.
The mid fi manufacturers will keep making digital amps, if only for one reason, iron = money. Most people are buying home theatre recievers which are up to usually 7 to 9 channels at 100 watts each. Even if they do the usual cheat of only putting out half the full power, thats 450 watts audio power. If it was class AB you'ld need at least a 1kw power transformer. 10 lbs of heat sink and a chassis thats big and strong enough.
Then you need to make a profit at wholesale prices of $400, including shipping 100lbs half way around the world.
As far as the price of complicated and harder to design units. If you spread the cost over 10,000 units it will be a lot less than the extra shipping costs AB would incur.
And if they are making them they will continue R&D and some of it will make the amps better.
I was under the impression that the output of a digital amp is in fact digital ie it is either on or off and it is effectively converted into analogue by the speaker.
At least that is how it was explained to me years ago.
Class D is not digital.
Buit i think that you can remove the analog imput on a class D amp so it can be some sort of a DAC. But with a litttle bit more power(1000W 🙂) ).
Class D amps are nice. I Don;t jnow if they have some sort of feedback or not.
Buit i think that you can remove the analog imput on a class D amp so it can be some sort of a DAC. But with a litttle bit more power(1000W 🙂) ).
Class D amps are nice. I Don;t jnow if they have some sort of feedback or not.
Nope.
In fact most 'D' Class amps don't have anything digital in them and the ones that do have a digital part in them you could most likely find the same part in an A/B amp. The D does not stand for digital. Digital signals are simply 'on' or 'off'/'1' or '0',you can't make a 1 and 0 bigger. People think of them as digital due to the way the output divices are operated either completely on or off, similar to a switching power supply but we don't call that a digital power supply.
A Class D amp uses the width or repetition rate of a pulse to encode the analogue signal. Although just 0s and 1s, this is still an analogue signal because pulse width and pulse rate are both analogue representations. In all except the smallest amps, this signal is converted into a pure analogue voltage level by the output filter before it reaches the speaker. This is necessary to avoid EMC problems.
Class D amps are very likely to use feedback to convert the input voltage signal into a pulse signal. Whether they also take feedback from the output I don't know. Given that switching transistors are not perfect switches I would expect that some global feedback would be used.
Class D could suffer from some of the same issues as a digital system, such as jitter, but there is no quantisation - just conversion from one analogue (voltage) to another analogue (pulse width) and back again.
Class D amps are very likely to use feedback to convert the input voltage signal into a pulse signal. Whether they also take feedback from the output I don't know. Given that switching transistors are not perfect switches I would expect that some global feedback would be used.
Class D could suffer from some of the same issues as a digital system, such as jitter, but there is no quantisation - just conversion from one analogue (voltage) to another analogue (pulse width) and back again.
The definition of 'digital' I have been taught in school and college is that it has only two states: on or off; one or zero.
That is all there is to define something as being digital hence I consider pulse width modulated signals as digital (as did my lecturer).
Consequently I do consider a switching psu as being digital, same as anything else which has only two states.
To be considered as being analogue a signal has got to be able to acquire ANY level between full on and full off. Like a record groove is a mechanical, analogue representation of a waveform or magnetic tape holds a electro-magnetic one. But if the signal recorded is passed through a pulse width modulator it becomes digital in the process because it is reduced to only two states.
That is all there is to define something as being digital hence I consider pulse width modulated signals as digital (as did my lecturer).
Consequently I do consider a switching psu as being digital, same as anything else which has only two states.
To be considered as being analogue a signal has got to be able to acquire ANY level between full on and full off. Like a record groove is a mechanical, analogue representation of a waveform or magnetic tape holds a electro-magnetic one. But if the signal recorded is passed through a pulse width modulator it becomes digital in the process because it is reduced to only two states.
Digital has two states, true. This is a description of some types of digital, not a definition. You are reversing this to say that anything with two states is digital - not true. To me, digital means that the values (e.g. signal level) are processed as numbers - the signal has been digitised. A Class D amp does not process them as numbers, therefore it is not digital. Just because a signal can pass through a logic gate does not mean it is digital. SMPS is definitely not digital.
You are confusing the commonly used signal analogue, voltage, with a definition of analogue. As I said, a pulse width can be a signal analogue too.
At the risk of creating confusion, is the signal sent by a modem analogue or digital? It can have a number of states (16 or 64?) set by amplitude and phase, yet it represents numbers. I regard it as digital. It has more than two states, yet does not represent a continuous distribution so is not the analogue of anything.
You are confusing the commonly used signal analogue, voltage, with a definition of analogue. As I said, a pulse width can be a signal analogue too.
At the risk of creating confusion, is the signal sent by a modem analogue or digital? It can have a number of states (16 or 64?) set by amplitude and phase, yet it represents numbers. I regard it as digital. It has more than two states, yet does not represent a continuous distribution so is not the analogue of anything.
They are still there and they will become more. Just not in consumer devices, but in highend. Digital amps with feedback are something that can't be implemented in a budget product, and so amps like NAD or Devialet are the digital future.
From wiki:
"Digital
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Digital (disambiguation).
A digital system[1] is a data technology that uses discrete (discontinuous) values. By contrast, non-digital (or analog) systems use a continuous range of values to represent information. Although digital representations are discrete, the information represented can be either discrete, such as numbers, letters or icons, or continuous, such as sounds, images, and other measurements of continuous systems."
It appears that according to wiki a pwm signal qualifies as being digital.
Charles
I would agree with you on this one. PWM is digital, so is PCM. It has nothing to do with the data string or format, only the fact that there are two logical states on or off.
I would agree with you on this one. PWM is digital, so is PCM. It has nothing to do with the data string or format, only the fact that there are two logical states on or off.
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