Class D come of age - Coherent amplification

[Firebottle]

As a techie I have sort of been following the evolution of 'digital' or class D amplifiers.
I know there are now some very good examples but I haven't heard any, until now.

During my recent visit to Coherent Systems I had the privilege of experiencing Tony's latest power amp, as yet unreleased.
It has some amazing specs (20nS rise time, 100A instantaneous current delivery) but what does it sound like?

The short answer is nothing. Zip. Nada.
By that I mean the music is just there in front of you. Loud or quiet, any genre just music.

Forget valve or solid state. Forget analogue or digital. Forget pixie dust or massive heatsinks - this amp is very efficient

This is the realisation of 'straight wire with gain', the rather wonderful line that Peter Walker came up with.
Fantastic doesn't cover it.

[walpurgis]

I can believe that Alan.

I have my cheapo TPA3116 in the system as my main amp at the moment and can't fault it. The valves, Quads and Sugden etc are taking a holiday.

[jandl100]

Interesting.
I've heard a fair few class d amps and while there was a wide range of presentations and excellence they all had a characteristic smoothing over of the finer details.
I guess the Coherent amps have overcome this?

[ianlenco]

I've got a Rogue Audio Sphinx 2 which has a valve pre and class D (Hypex I think) power stage. Very happy with the sound and find it very funny when folk who have been listening quite happily to my system suddenly look as though someone in the room has farted when I tell them it's Class D!

[Firebottle]

Interesting.
I've heard a fair few class d amps and while there was a wide range of presentations and excellence they all had a characteristic smoothing over of the finer details.
I guess the Coherent amps have overcome this?

And some. Best sound I have ever heard.

[Firebottle]

... when folk who have been listening quite happily to my system suddenly look as though someone in the room has farted when I tell them it's Class D!

That's class Ian

[hifinutt]

wow , i had a pair of tony [ coherants ] ref 1000 modded amps and they were superb . much better than the previous ref 1000 . had many things off tony over the years and glad you could get down there . i miss his place in malvern and ripple

he has a renovated pair of belles mb200 which are beautiful amps . had some before the msb , be interesting to compare them to the fb hybrid monoblocks

[hifinutt]

myself and deggie were listening to a little topping on monday with some p3esr and it did not sound bad at all


23 watts and 55 quid s/h !!!

[Mr. C]

Alan brought with him his Firebottle mono's, which in fairness where very good, they drove the Quadral Galan's really well and sounded very good considering the cost, a real bargain imho.

[Sherwood]

I am convinced that class d is the way forward and that there are several current amps using this technology which can compete with the best in other classes. I speak as the owner of a very nice valve amp and beefy class a/b amp, as well as various "chip amps", class t designs and so forth.

As an additional consideration, and from an environmental perspective, I feel very guilty these days about the inefficiency of valve and class A designs, even though the SQ may be great.

Geoff


QUOTE=Firebottle;1053070]As a techie I have sort of been following the evolution of 'digital' or class D amplifiers.
I know there are now some very good examples but I haven't heard any, until now.

During my recent visit to Coherent Systems I had the privilege of experiencing Tony's latest power amp, as yet unreleased.
It has some amazing specs (20nS rise time, 100A instantaneous current delivery) but what does it sound like?

The short answer is nothing. Zip. Nada.
By that I mean the music is just there in front of you. Loud or quiet, any genre just music.

Forget valve or solid state. Forget analogue or digital. Forget pixie dust or massive heatsinks - this amp is very efficient

This is the realisation of 'straight wire with gain', the rather wonderful line that Peter Walker came up with.
Fantastic doesn't cover it.

[/QUOTE]