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Author Topic: Class D Amplifiers  (Read 5423 times)

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Offline OOK

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Class D Amplifiers
« on: July 10, 2013, 07:47:41 PM »
Does anyone have any experience with Class D amplifiers.  How do they sound?  Are they prone to interference? 


Looks like they are similar to Tripath or class T amps.  I am very familiar with those.  I have a Topping TP-22 that sounds awesome. It does seem like there may be some slight differences though.
« Last Edit: July 11, 2013, 01:00:01 PM by OOK »
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Re: Class D Amplifiers
« Reply #1 on: July 10, 2013, 08:12:33 PM »
Depends on the implementation.  The longest historical and most common use is in subwoofer amps which are easiest to do well.  The interference issues and sonic challenges came with getting them to do high frequencies well as I understand.  I can't remember the name but there is/was a late 90's early 00's era high dollar audiophile design that was rather notorious for interference problems causing oscillation (Spectum or some name like that maybe).  Amps built recently bassed on the Hypex amp modules are very highly respected for stability, sound and good design engineering.

I love my inexpensive 2004 era Panasonic receiver with switching-mode amp modules which drives 4 B&W 802s nicely.  It's pretty much a wire-with-gain thing until the power supply simply runs out of juice.  Especially nice for playing back recordings that are not normalized since it is dead-quiet almost all the way up to full gain.  It was a stop gap which I didn't believe would perform as well as it does which I planned on replacing but don't feel any need sound-wise.  I've never had any interference or ground hum problems with it.

People love the cheap little 'T' amps but they don't produce much power and the ones I've heard were nothing special outside of decent and cheap.
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Offline OOK

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Re: Class D Amplifiers
« Reply #2 on: July 10, 2013, 08:28:26 PM »
Thanks.... for the info.  I am always on the lookout for new and interesting audio companies and I found this company and I am intrigued by there products.

 http://classdaudio.com/ 

Especially nice for playing back recordings that are not normalized since it is dead-quiet almost all the way up to full gain.

Well that is an interesting statement.  I am even more intrigued now.

OOK
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Offline Phil Zone

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Re: Class D Amplifiers
« Reply #3 on: July 10, 2013, 10:55:10 PM »
I have a lot of class d amps and they have all worked well, they do have a slight different, digital sound. Not as warm a sound as something such as a class a or b or ab. But the power draw is way less. They are also way lighter, so they are all around pretty good but I prefer the old sound.
 
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Offline OOK

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Re: Class D Amplifiers
« Reply #4 on: July 11, 2013, 07:25:05 AM »
I have a lot of class d amps and they have all worked well, they do have a slight different, digital sound. Not as warm a sound as something such as a class a or b or ab. But the power draw is way less. They are also way lighter, so they are all around pretty good but I prefer the old sound.

He is additional information I have found out.....  I too thought the D meant digital but it doesn't.

Quote
A class-D amplifier or switching amplifier is an electronic amplifier where all power devices (usually MOSFETs) are operated as binary switches. They are either fully on or fully off. Ideally, zero time is spent transitioning between those two states.

Output stages such as those used in pulse generators are examples of class D amplifiers. However, the term mostly applies to power amplifiers intended to reproduce signals with a bandwidth well below the switching frequency.

The term "class D" is sometimes misunderstood as meaning a "digital" amplifier. While some class D amps may indeed be controlled by digital circuits or include digital signal processing devices, the power stage deals with voltage and current as a function of non-quantized time. The smallest amount of noise, timing uncertainty, voltage ripple or any other non-ideality immediately results in an irreversible change of the output signal. The same errors will only lead to incorrect results when they become so large that a signal representing a digit is distorted beyond recognition. Up to that point, non-idealities have no impact on the transmitted signal. The difference between digital and analogue signals is that digital signals are subsequently interpreted as numbers whereas in analogue signals the exact waveform matters.
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Offline jefflester

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Re: Class D Amplifiers
« Reply #5 on: July 11, 2013, 12:52:48 PM »
I am a Topping TP-22 that sounds awesome.

To hear the amplifier you must *be* the amplifier.
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Offline OOK

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Re: Class D Amplifiers
« Reply #6 on: July 11, 2013, 01:02:01 PM »
I am a Topping TP-22 that sounds awesome.

To hear the amplifier you must *be* the amplifier.

Dude if you understood my thought paterns, you would be amazed I could even form a sentence.   :P
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Offline scb

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Re: Class D Amplifiers
« Reply #7 on: July 12, 2013, 07:56:24 AM »
I have a lot of class d amps and they have all worked well, they do have a slight different, digital sound. Not as warm a sound as something such as a class a or b or ab. But the power draw is way less. They are also way lighter, so they are all around pretty good but I prefer the old sound.

Newer class D amplifiers sound very different from the class D of a few years ago.  There are class D amps that even sound "tubey."

They've definitely come a long way. 

(I'm still using an AB at home, though)

Offline Chilly Brioschi

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Re: Class D Amplifiers
« Reply #8 on: July 13, 2013, 06:47:37 PM »
I have a lot of class d amps and they have all worked well, they do have a slight different, digital sound. Not as warm a sound as something such as a class a or b or ab. But the power draw is way less. They are also way lighter, so they are all around pretty good but I prefer the old sound.

Newer class D amplifiers sound very different from the class D of a few years ago.  There are class D amps that even sound "tubey."

They've definitely come a long way. 

(I'm still using an AB at home, though)

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Offline JasonSobel

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Re: Class D Amplifiers
« Reply #9 on: July 20, 2013, 08:35:26 PM »
I used to have a pair of Channel Islands Audio class D monoblocks.
http://www.ciaudio.com/

(I had a pair of the VMB-1's, which were 40 watts / channel, and the predecessor of the D-100 monoblocks).

I thought that they sounded great, very smooth and clear tone overall.  I sold them because I needed the money, but I wouldn't hesitate to get another class D power amp.

Offline BlindGuyEars

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Re: Class D Amplifiers
« Reply #10 on: July 27, 2013, 02:55:38 PM »
I echo what someone else said about them being generally thought to reproduce lows and mids better than highs. My Adam A7X monitors seem to support that, since Adam Audio used class D for the bass/mid amp and a/b for the amp driving the tweater.

Offline Əkoostikal

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Re: Class D Amplifiers
« Reply #11 on: August 17, 2013, 06:37:55 PM »

I love my inexpensive 2004 era Panasonic receiver with switching-mode amp modules which drives 4 B&W 802s nicely. 



Hey Gutbucket, I mean no disrespect at all but are you really powering 4 802's with a Panasonic receiver and getting adequate sound? B&W's are notoriously power hungry so I would be surprised to hear your setup. Again, I mean no disrespect just trying to find out if I really need to go out of the way in terms of amps since I have been considering upgrading my 803's to 802's. I run a Rotel RB-1080 now and think it sounds great but have herd 802's with as much as 600+ watt monoblocks running them and they still sounded like they could take double that. Do you have a separate subwoofer(s) or just the 802's?
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Re: Class D Amplifiers
« Reply #12 on: August 18, 2013, 01:23:48 PM »
Honestly I was surprised it did as well as it does, too.  It actually powers three of them across the front, the fourth is placed center back and run off a separate amp.  It does some amp module switching/bridging/bi-amping depending on the playback mode which helps- in 2ch stereo it actually uses six of the 100wpc nominal modules, bridging two modules to each woofer cab and routing the third separately to the mid/highs.  Now I don't pretend that it can actually output 600W continuous from the small stock power supply it has, but it goes as loud as I care to take it with decent authority.  In multichannel mode it uses one module per speaker channel but the overall efficiency goes up since there is then 8 separate speakers helping to achieve the same SPL  (two surrounds each side, parallel wired off one module, plus the extra 802 on it's own amp at center back).  They could certainly handle more power, it doesn't have the same authoritative bass slam as when a friend of mine was running one of these pairs off two Bryston 4Bs.  I'd like to throw some bigger amperage at them to see how much difference it makes here, but I'd have to rework the surround setup and haven't been motivated or deep pocketed enough to do it.  Basically it totally satisfies me so until this little Panny eventually dies, so I'll probably just leave it till then. Plus the smaller amperage has probably saved me more than a few times when unforeseen recording glitches have bottomed out the woofers with it cranked. The 802's I have are the pre-Nautilus mid-90's era Matrix 3's, no sub.
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Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

 

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