Re: High End Class D
Just to make clear, i am not talking about those products that were on sale 1-2 years ago or even now, i am talking about the next generation, coming on sale this winter and on. [/B][/QUOTE]
The Audio Physic Class D power amps have been among the official references of several magazines for a while.
Just to make clear, i am not talking about those products that were on sale 1-2 years ago or even now, i am talking about the next generation, coming on sale this winter and on. [/B][/QUOTE]
The Audio Physic Class D power amps have been among the official references of several magazines for a while.
Lars Clausen said:
Is that bad?
What, suddenly everything sounds bad???
EVERYTHING?
Vinyl was 'dead' 15 years ago.
I never sold my turntable, whatever the marketing guys say.
It 'returned' years later and I watch all this with a good laugh.
Meanwhile, I bought very good music on vinyl for peanuts.
Lars Clausen said:
Ok, send me a sample and I'll test it.😀
This all seems like a planned marketing scheme.
Sorry if I am too... Direct.
Except the guy is not selling anything 😀 And seriously i think numerous attempts from several companies over the last years have shown that it's really impossible to abuse this forum to market anything. Which is very good!
Good healthy scepticism. I can only applause you!
Yes and i have heard magazines shouting out some Class D amplifier as the world's best amplifier ever, better than Mark Levinson 334 and bla bla, but it never really made it anyway.
But it's not about that. Class D is simply taking a big leap forward at this point.
Some do, but now Class D is getting ahead... Anyway there is big difference between socalled high-end audiophile amplifiers. Not all are worth their price.
I don't know the specific model you are referring to, but i would risk this statement: Class D will eat it up! And not in 5 years. Sorry.
All this is of course just my own private market analysis, and it is not founded in any commercial interest. Just want to tell you all you have something to look forward to in the next 3-6 months.
My prediction is that the next generation will eliminate the analog interconnects. All connection will be digital interconnects. You will also be able to plug mp3 devices via usb and play it on the system.
soongsc: Yes why not. But you really can't get any useful hifi sound out of MP3. Ok for partying though 😎
soongsc said:
Future?
I've heard that more than a year ago, a Panasonic digital amp connected to a Panasonic DVD player with an optical digital cable.
Don't ask me the model, I didn't take notice. It's one of those slim Panasonic A/V receivers.
At the time, you could buy that amp on the supermarket for ~350€.
I've heard it in stereo, with a pair of Monitor Audio floorstanders.
It did sound good (better than I expected), very tight bass, detailed midband, but the treble didn't go high, it was shut-in like if it had a sharp roll-off too soon on the audio band.
Of course, it's possible to tweak the output filter, but that tuning is valid for your pair of speakers, the amp may not sound good with other speakers.
This is a limitation, indeed.
Better put a switch with several inductor and cap settings. 😀
Hi,
I dont' think optics are where it's going. What would that cure that's really not a problem if you use a proper input stage?
In the same respect why would digital inputs be an advantage from a sound quality perspective? I can see it making it cleaner to do an 8 channel system with or something though, I'd simply argue the need for it to ever become a requirement from a "quality" sound perspective.
With either optics or whatever input you prefer I dont' think it was ever a limiting factor for class d performance, and that's been proven by the current class d technology. There's still other factors which affect performance of much greater importance and concern. Lars I trust you weren't referring to post filter feedback as being one of the last few stumps in the road to a new revolution which have now been solved? Would you mind telling us what exactly you did have in mind when you said that?
No maybe people won't easily give out such information as to what lies/lay's ahead however they do get it patented so it's likely enough to keep an eye on those, which I've been doing, and I haven't seen any recent patents aside from perhaps one or two that I think are already on the market. The revolution will come as class D becomes the defacto mainstream commercial amp of choice, more chip amp solutions.
I think we've seen already that when it comes to high end as we like to consider it, chip amps don't cut it for class d at any power level of interest, seems those who've tried went to great expense to achieve lesser performance than can be done discretly by those skilled enough to do so.
BTW you may no longer be a direct competitor of Hypex but you may one day again, and everything you've ever posted will always remain in public record, so make sure you're proud of it🙂
Seems like you've been through a significant life change. Congratulations on that, and on having been a good enough boy to earn your internet priviledges 🙂 Best of luck in all avenues.
Back to audio..
Audio physic's stuff is neither new nor revolutionary, maybe you mean the Mueta? I bet that will take another five years, and as their website claims they've revolutionized it already🙂
There's now an interesting mix in this thread were we see those of us who know where class d is today staying kind of quiet, content in our expectations for the future of it, and those fearing change hanging on by the skin o their teeth.
I think other classes of amps will always have their place, mainly in text books and classrooms. I still feel the plateau is no longer in the circuits themselves (for the ...elite class) but remains and will remain in the components themselves, parasitics and other physical limitations.
Designs may become smarter yet, and hopefully willl, I feel UCD will continue with a leading role for awhile though because I haven't yet seen a smarter/simpler/more elagant circuit, have you?
Regards,
Chris
I dont' think optics are where it's going. What would that cure that's really not a problem if you use a proper input stage?
In the same respect why would digital inputs be an advantage from a sound quality perspective? I can see it making it cleaner to do an 8 channel system with or something though, I'd simply argue the need for it to ever become a requirement from a "quality" sound perspective.
With either optics or whatever input you prefer I dont' think it was ever a limiting factor for class d performance, and that's been proven by the current class d technology. There's still other factors which affect performance of much greater importance and concern. Lars I trust you weren't referring to post filter feedback as being one of the last few stumps in the road to a new revolution which have now been solved? Would you mind telling us what exactly you did have in mind when you said that?
No maybe people won't easily give out such information as to what lies/lay's ahead however they do get it patented so it's likely enough to keep an eye on those, which I've been doing, and I haven't seen any recent patents aside from perhaps one or two that I think are already on the market. The revolution will come as class D becomes the defacto mainstream commercial amp of choice, more chip amp solutions.
I think we've seen already that when it comes to high end as we like to consider it, chip amps don't cut it for class d at any power level of interest, seems those who've tried went to great expense to achieve lesser performance than can be done discretly by those skilled enough to do so.
BTW you may no longer be a direct competitor of Hypex but you may one day again, and everything you've ever posted will always remain in public record, so make sure you're proud of it🙂
Seems like you've been through a significant life change. Congratulations on that, and on having been a good enough boy to earn your internet priviledges 🙂 Best of luck in all avenues.
Back to audio..
Audio physic's stuff is neither new nor revolutionary, maybe you mean the Mueta? I bet that will take another five years, and as their website claims they've revolutionized it already🙂
There's now an interesting mix in this thread were we see those of us who know where class d is today staying kind of quiet, content in our expectations for the future of it, and those fearing change hanging on by the skin o their teeth.
I think other classes of amps will always have their place, mainly in text books and classrooms. I still feel the plateau is no longer in the circuits themselves (for the ...elite class) but remains and will remain in the components themselves, parasitics and other physical limitations.
Designs may become smarter yet, and hopefully willl, I feel UCD will continue with a leading role for awhile though because I haven't yet seen a smarter/simpler/more elagant circuit, have you?
Regards,
Chris
The specs of the Mueta are impressive. But haven`t there been lots of conventional amps with monstrous specs that didn`t sound audiophile at all?
el`Ol said:
This is very nearly becomming a cliche thread 🙂
Which specs exactly? Mueta seems to provide enough detail that can actually give you an idea as to whether or not it could in practice be made to sound good.
I haven't researched it enough to be able to say if any amps with respectable equivalent information didn't sound good, or the possible reasons why they may not have, like a shabby implementation for instance.
We all know the commercial trick of a very low THD spec at low power and low frequency and that the spectrum of it looks like a big check mark but with such an array of graphs I don't think we're really walking in the dark.
classd4sure said:
Chris, I didn't say it's and advantage, I just said it's a normal thing these days, not on the near future.
What's the point in having a very good digital source, with very low jitter and a very good analog stage and feeding a digital signal to a cheap(ly) implemented amplifier with cheap(ly) implemented digital circuits and conversions inside?
No, thanks.
And I have analog sources too, so passing my precious vinyl through an ADC is also not for me.
Better stick this to power amps and not include preamp and digital conversion stages, because we could be lost forever in this thread.😀
digtal amps ..
I wonder where this (revolutionar) technoly for power amps stands compared to its classic (analog) counterparts.
I don't yet have a Class D amplifier so I can't compare it with my classic Spectral DMA150. There will be a day I'll buy and compare, but reading Lars his post that the next generation will be aleap forward for Class D, I wonder what the weaknesses are of current generation as I have read only read stories that rave about this technology.
So if somebody here can list the weakneses of the current ClassD technology, then it can be understood what to expect from the next generation.
Thanks Henk
I wonder where this (revolutionar) technoly for power amps stands compared to its classic (analog) counterparts.
I don't yet have a Class D amplifier so I can't compare it with my classic Spectral DMA150. There will be a day I'll buy and compare, but reading Lars his post that the next generation will be aleap forward for Class D, I wonder what the weaknesses are of current generation as I have read only read stories that rave about this technology.
So if somebody here can list the weakneses of the current ClassD technology, then it can be understood what to expect from the next generation.
Thanks Henk
classd4sure said:
Sorry, I didn`t see the FFT graphs, I just read dampening factor 1000 and two kinds of feedback and packed out some clichees.
Re: digtal amps ..
One of them is very different frequency response depending on the speaker load.
Calimero said:
One of them is very different frequency response depending on the speaker load.
Not with UcD!!!!!
We have a flat and full load independed frequency respons in all typical loads. (2-4-8-16 or even no load......😀)
Regards,
Jan-Peter
JP, if there are no weaknesses,
that implies there is no improvement possible. Both are hard to believe for me and tell more about you, JP.
But how about waknesses with respect:
- to noise ratio (as Nelson is advertising here with his First Watt design/philosophy)
- jitter, as I believe the distortion in the time-domain is called. In one of the posts here I read about the relation power supply noise and jitter (can't remember what the ratio was).
- RFI generated by the switching device and its affects on the source equipment driving the amp.
- input impedance of the Class D amp, as they AFAIK use a opamp as input circuit (all weaknesses of that circuit) are passed on to the power amp.
who else ...
that implies there is no improvement possible. Both are hard to believe for me and tell more about you, JP.
But how about waknesses with respect:
- to noise ratio (as Nelson is advertising here with his First Watt design/philosophy)
- jitter, as I believe the distortion in the time-domain is called. In one of the posts here I read about the relation power supply noise and jitter (can't remember what the ratio was).
- RFI generated by the switching device and its affects on the source equipment driving the amp.
- input impedance of the Class D amp, as they AFAIK use a opamp as input circuit (all weaknesses of that circuit) are passed on to the power amp.
who else ...
Calimero;
The UcD modules are;
Extremely low output noise.
Very low EMI, the lowest in the market.
We use an audiophile rated opamp as an upgrade.
Please check our data sheet of the UcD400;
http://www.hypex.nl/classd/ucd400 datasheet.pdf
http://www.hypex.nl/classd/UcD400fol.pdf
Jan-Peter
The UcD modules are;
Extremely low output noise.
Very low EMI, the lowest in the market.
We use an audiophile rated opamp as an upgrade.
Please check our data sheet of the UcD400;
http://www.hypex.nl/classd/ucd400 datasheet.pdf
http://www.hypex.nl/classd/UcD400fol.pdf
Jan-Peter
Hi,
Well if this thread wasn't cliche before it sure has crossed that line now!
I don't know what people are waiting for, a class d salesman to come knocking on their door maybe? Keep up with the news/do some research and stop repeating the old myths that no longer apply. I'm waiting for the post that say's they have zero PSRR and our cliche thread will be near complete.
I don't think UCD would even be the only amp around with load independant frequency response, probably certainly one of the few though.
They aren't all "digital" and if jitter worries you have a look at the benefits of self oscillating amps.
Of _course_ there's improvement possible I don't think anyone would dare say otherwise.
Also,
Calimero:
That's different from any other amp how?
Honestly I don't mind if you want to wait five years because Lars say's so, I think it's your loss. I wouldn't expect a new king anytime soon, but I'll let you research why yourself.
Carlos I fully agree the number of conversions should be kept to a bare minimum.
I think the best thing we can take out of this thread is that all those who would disagree about where class d actually is today haven't exactly done their homework on it yet. I like seeing fresh interest in it though, and I think if you gave it a try you wouldn't be dissapointed.
Regards,
Chris
Well if this thread wasn't cliche before it sure has crossed that line now!
I don't know what people are waiting for, a class d salesman to come knocking on their door maybe? Keep up with the news/do some research and stop repeating the old myths that no longer apply. I'm waiting for the post that say's they have zero PSRR and our cliche thread will be near complete.
I don't think UCD would even be the only amp around with load independant frequency response, probably certainly one of the few though.
They aren't all "digital" and if jitter worries you have a look at the benefits of self oscillating amps.
Of _course_ there's improvement possible I don't think anyone would dare say otherwise.
Also,
Calimero:
That's different from any other amp how?
Honestly I don't mind if you want to wait five years because Lars say's so, I think it's your loss. I wouldn't expect a new king anytime soon, but I'll let you research why yourself.
Carlos I fully agree the number of conversions should be kept to a bare minimum.
I think the best thing we can take out of this thread is that all those who would disagree about where class d actually is today haven't exactly done their homework on it yet. I like seeing fresh interest in it though, and I think if you gave it a try you wouldn't be dissapointed.
Regards,
Chris
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