Post by stvnharr December 6, 2014 (121 of 127)
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Fitzcaraldo215 said:
The simple reason for that is if they base an amp on NCore, there is little meaningful the manufacturer can do to differentiate his product from all the others except price. And, that is contrary to all the high end stands for, for better or for worse.
Oh, so correct.
Class D is well suited to DIY construction as the modules come complete, often with matching power supply and only really need assembly into a chassis. Thus you have the NCore diy modules and DIY modules from newclassD.com., and others.
Jeff Rowland Design Group is one of the few high end companies to do Class D. They jumped on the Ice Power modules at their introduction and made very nice products with them, with matchingly suitable high end prices. JRDG added Power Factor Correction and perhaps some other things to differentiate their Class D products.
Another company I know of is Veloce, a real small east coast US company that uses battery power to power the hypex modules they use.
But yes, there aren't many high end companies going the Class D route.
A company likes to have products that bear a signature of the owner/designer. And the designer likes to use his own designs. There is not much signature in using someone else's module.
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Post by grsimmon December 6, 2014 (122 of 127)
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Disbeliever said:
NAD I have found to be badly made mechanically unreliable, is their small Class D amp. Hypexed, or N cored . Rogue Audio I know for antique tubes, only Channel Islands I know of are Jersey & Guernsey. If Hypex & Ncore Class D modules are better than Class AB, why are no mainstream manufacturers using them.
I'm in the US and not familiar with the following publication, but here is a Rogue hypex review from the UK:
http://www.hifiplus.com/articles/rogue-audio-sphinx-integrated-amplifier/
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Sorry to resurrect this older forum, but there might be some useful new information. In the January, 2015 issue of The Absolute Sound, there is a feature set of reviews of the Soulution 701 and 711 amplifiers, plus the 725 stereo preamp. Cyril Hammer of Soulution describes in depth the improvements of these new models over the previous 700/710 and 720 models. Prices for these luxury devices is as follows: 701 Monoblock amps $165k per pair, 711 Stereo amp $65 k, 725 preamp $50k. That is just for perspective. I am not endorsing these products. I have never heard them, and I am not likely to.
The 701/711 series are decidedly not Class D amps, the topic of this thread. But, the point is this: Soulution has found great advantage to replacing the linear power supply in the older units with switch mode power supplies (SMPS). That is the only change over the older 700/710. The rest of the respective amps' circuitry remains the same. Hammer acknowledges that SMPS has an undeserved bad, low end reputation among audiophiles. But, he cites great improvements to power output, noise and overall sonics as a result of the switch. Graphs showing superior noise behavior before with Linear and after with SMPS are provided, and they are impressive.
Parenthetically, the 725 preamp retains its linear power supply, but has other improvements over the 720 model.
In light of the power supply discussion, above in this forum, there might be further evidence that SMPS is not the pariah that some audiophiles make it to be vs. traditional linear power supplies. But, there is no automatic answer to the question, which is best? That seems to depend on other things about the implementation, not whether they are switch mode or linear. It is also clear that if an all out, cost no object manufacturer is willing to gamble his reputation on SMPS in the amps, it suggests that properly implemented SMPS might even be a good thing.
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Linear supplies are much better value,sound excellent and avoid any possible radiation issues which result in higher costs for SMPS. Who buys a stereo amp for $65K or mono blocks for $165K ?
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Post by Iain December 16, 2014 (125 of 127)
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Fitzcaraldo215 said:
Sorry to resurrect this older forum, but there might be some ...
Pathetic!!!
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Disbeliever said:
Linear supplies are much better value,sound excellent and avoid any possible radiation issues which result in higher costs for SMPS. Who buys a stereo amp for $65K or mono blocks for $165K ?
Obviously, Soulution disagrees with you when SMPS is properly implemented, which is the point. An actual engineer, tailspn, has already explained that SMPS already appears all over the place in the pro-caliber gear used for hi rez. There is also no sign of "possible radiation issues" in the Soulution graphs. There is only dramatically diminished noise across the audible spectrum and beyond, plus higher power, power factor correction, higher efficiency, reduced thermal loading, reduced PS size and weight, etc. Please read the article.
Where did you get your engineering degree? Your "facts" are plainly wrong on their face. Why would anyone choose to use something in critical, extreme high end audio that is more expensive, sounds worse and introduces more noise via radiation, especially when that risks raising the hackles of unknowlegable, tradition-bound audiophiles based on blind prejudice?
It is analogous to recordings. A well engineered CD can sound better than a poorly engineered SACD. Well engineered SMPS can sound better than linear, but in either case engineering is the key. SMPS is newer technology which is also over the heads of many traditition bound audio engineers and existing designs today. I believe that is also in the process of changing and that you are likely to see more and more of it in the years ahead because of compelling technical advantages, as well as cost. You might not have a choice at some point in future.
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Post by stvnharr December 16, 2014 (127 of 127)
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Disbeliever said:
Linear supplies are much better value,sound excellent and avoid any possible radiation issues which result in higher costs for SMPS.
Well, it isn't so simple black and white as you seem to think. SMPS has their own set of issues, as do linear psu's. SMPS is slowly gaining traction in expensive high end gear as the "issues", get taken care of with innovative engineering making SMPS to be a very effective power supply solution. It will take some time for the general impression of SMPS as cheap and nasty, to go away.
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