ou might slip, you might slide, you might
Stumble and fall by the road side
But don't you ever let nobody drag your spirit down
Remember you're walking up to heaven
Don't let nobody turn you around
… Walk with the rich, walk with the poor
Learn from everyone, that's what life is for
And don't you let nobody drag your spirit down
Eric Bibb
Phil is referring to my hybrid valve/mosfet monoblocks.
The amps I took down to Tony's place are a new compact class D monoblock https://theartofsound.net/forum/show...New-Miniblocks
The rating is 28W into 8 ohm.
ou might slip, you might slide, you might
Stumble and fall by the road side
But don't you ever let nobody drag your spirit down
Remember you're walking up to heaven
Don't let nobody turn you around
… Walk with the rich, walk with the poor
Learn from everyone, that's what life is for
And don't you let nobody drag your spirit down
Eric Bibb
Location: Seaford UK
Posts: 1,861
I'm Dennis.
I was initially very sceptical about class D power amps, but not now, they seem to have it pretty well nailed and they will reach a stably unquestioned near perfection state soon.
I am using the active Icepower amps which are a part of my Betas, and this is easily the most revealing speaker I have had, with one slight reservation. the upper Heil, which does the upper range above 2.8kHz is very screechy on FM, more than with my own design and with an ATC SPA2.
Guess what, the amp in the pack driving this is a normal class AB amp.
The cat is unhappy because he used to bask in the ATC's heat, and the Icepower is 97% efficient so usually dissipating only one watt per side.
Over the years, I have investigated many switching designs, Tripath, Ice power, Hypex (Both UCD and Ncores) and the small Ice bricks, all have pro's and con's, some due to bandwidth issues, others due to average input stages and use of smps. There are some stand out designs, usually the lower power variety, which just seems to have some audio magic when you listen to them, like a high quality pair of stand mount speakers imho
As with all of these designs implementation is the key, these days with energy conservation firmly in mind, many power supplies have certain limitations which can impede the progress of quality amp design. With smarter power control, energy harvesting, smarter materials for FET's etc and storage having improved vastly over the last 10 years, scope has opened up to exploit certain aspects of switching designs.
One of the biggest gripes have been lack of real three dimensional staging with depth, tonal rendering and layering of instruments, power was never the issue or bass control (unless early ice power units) nor was the solidity of the sound. But delivering a convincing 3D soundscape with correct tonality, subtly and delicacy a million miles away.
Now I feel it is possible to have virtually all the fluidity of top draw valves like 2A3's / EL34's etc, but without any draw backs, top to bottom linearity, fifth harmonic + bandwidths, zero noise through the speakers and no indoor sauna's. Plus the ability to drive a much wider range of speakers thus giving freedom to chose a more closely matched speaker / amplifier impedance with recourse to speakers 95dB+ that you can hear the cabinet resonant a mile away! Joking aside, in the next five years you will see some quite delightful all digital designs that will sound very decent and put the Devialet / Paul Miller best amp in the world to bed once and for all
Valve amps will always be here enthusiastic lovers of thermionic amplification will only stop loving them when they pass away
Interesting snippet, last year a not insignificant number of valve amp owning customers (of many years) decided to change to either quality a/b or some form of small powered PWM amp, still kept the valve amps but have not felt the need to put them back in their systems for what ever reason.
Its not going to start a revolution, so fear not , it is just giving people,food for thought that even five years ago they would never have given a second thought.
Just as a side bar D'agostino has just launched a pair of mono-blocks (Relentless) which can chuck out 1.5Kw @ 8ohms, 6KWrms @2 ohms (at which point it is consuming 10KW of raw power ) Deliver 400Amps (peak) weigh a bit more than me 258Kg each and should heat the whole of Huddersfield quite easily, and measure not far off 1 meter deep and these are solid state!
Full rail P 2 P voltage is a staggering 320Vac, need to start a car with a flat battery? just point the amp terminals within 1/2 a mile and hey presto it would start a Juggernaut. Maybe its a secrete Trump EMP weapon on the QT. Cost? my guess the DarTZeel mono's are around the £140K a pair damn fine their are two, so I would suggest around the £200K mark.
Has the world gone bonkers, quite possibly but you can smile while clocking up the electric bill
Coherent Systems
Real high end sound with musicality not hifi
So which class d units do they use?
Kuzma Stabi/S 12", (LP12-bastard) DC motor and optical tacho psu, Benz LP, Paradise (phonostage). MB-Pro, Brooklyn dac and psu, Bruno Putzeys balanced pre, mod86p dual mono amps, Yamaha NS1000m
Tony's amps are bespoke. He is a very talented engineer.
Location: East Riding of Yorkshire these days
Posts: 4,779
I'm Shaun.
I've been wanting to try out a pair of Temple Audio monoblocks with additional PSU's for quite some time. Maybe one day I'll get the chance (and the £1k required). I'm borderline thinking that they may be better than my current power amp. Then again, they may not. My current system gives me what I want apart from lots of headroom.
Tony, if you've designed a new Class D circuit for your amps that's not based on another OEM design then hats off to you mate, that's big job and a hard one to get right.
Kuzma Stabi/S 12", (LP12-bastard) DC motor and optical tacho psu, Benz LP, Paradise (phonostage). MB-Pro, Brooklyn dac and psu, Bruno Putzeys balanced pre, mod86p dual mono amps, Yamaha NS1000m