Jerry's ongoing system blog

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

MBL speakers and a £40 graphic equaliser that is the best juxtaposition of equipment I ever seen, congrats Jerry :D

Werll, for a couple of months I was using the MBLs with a £55 rrp "Mini-T" 8wpc t-amp.
... and they sounded great!

During all the years of reading your journey this was the only episode I couldn't accept. I have built, listened to, and fully evaluated class D since the very first commercial one was built by Clive Sinclair in 1968 - The Neoteric, and they are impressive in many ways, but they lose the essence of music, they have no majesty, they are a puddle of a pond

[jandl100]

Well, I respect your views -- but I think we will have to agree to differ on this one. I've had a wide range of class-D amps - from the miniscule TA2020-chipped Mini-T to the mighty 360wpc Bel Canto eVo4, and probably a dozen or so others in between. For me, they ALL capture the essence of the music in their own ways. I consider class D amps to be fundamentally musical, in a way that valve and 'standard' solid state cannot be relied on to be.

So there!

The nearest to 'poor' sounding class D I have heard was a pair of Wired4Sound class D monoblocks - way too laidback for me.
Oh, & some Red Wine battery-powered poweramp shite - so wimpy and boring. But I blame the battery power for that.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Well just note you have a Parasound now so they couldn't have been that good. Anyway I would bake off NVA (or any good class A or AB) against them any time. Basically the circuit is fundamentally flawed, it provides very good clarity and information if used correctly, but the flow and what I would call the emotional content of the music is lost, I find them sterile. If I wanted to I could produce a class D amp, I don't want to.

But lets not have an argument about it, everyone has ears to judge for themselves.

[jandl100]

Well just note you have a Parasound now so they couldn't have been that good.

Sigh.
I have to be honest and say I feel a bit dis-heartened by that comment.

I've had loads of kit that I rate very highly even though I do not now own it. I would include NVA amps in that list, and many other things including a lot of class D amps.

.... Jerry wanders off sighing sadly to himself ....

[Daniel Quinn]

Now now Jerry, my excuse for ego centric posts, is I was very very drunk. :D

Given the understanding your EQ has received, not quite sure your last post is in keeping with the leeway you have hitherto been afforded.

p.s well done to Bradley Wiggins , team sky and Dave Brailsford .

pps - BBC ROCKS.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Well just note you have a Parasound now so they couldn't have been that good.

Sigh.
I have to be honest and say I feel a bit dis-heartened by that comment.

I've had loads of kit that I rate very highly even though I do not now own it. I would include NVA amps in that list, and many other things including a lot of class D amps.

.... Jerry wanders off sighing sadly to himself ....

I see nothing wrong with what I said, you are on record for saying the Parasound is the best amp you have had.

Anyway *I* don't like them, I find them bland and bordering on sterile, but I don't presume to impose my views on anyone. I recommend everyone tries one (or more) and makes up their own mind and tells us about it.

[Lindsayt]

The big problem that I have with the Class D amps that I've heard is that they make pianos sound wrong.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

The big problem that I have with the Class D amps that I've heard is that they make pianos sound wrong.

Linear is the wrong word, but they are not *right* in the way they operate. A good amplifier is like a water tap that operates very quickly and responds to changes. The water is the current supply from the PSU, and the circuit is the tap. There is something not right in a class D tap. Again I will have to use the word wrongly but it is not linear in how the circuit reacts to the music on one side and the rail voltages on the other, something artificial happens and effects the music.

All class D's are the same in this, it is a facet of the circuit. The circuit does some things very right though, it is very clean and informative in the mid band which seems to attract and hook some people, but for me the frequency extremes just don't seem to belong to the same bit of music. this would definitely make piano peculiar as tonal and timing anomalies destroy piano recordings.

[jandl100]

Given the understanding your EQ has received, not quite sure your last post is in keeping with the leeway you have hitherto been afforded.

Ah, but I do not wish to be given any 'leeway'.

I am happy to discuss the issue in a friendly and sensible manner!

[jandl100]

Re; class D amps.

Hmm. I do find it curious that opinions tend to be so very polarised on class D amps.

I've had a fair bit of experience with different kit, as well as a fair bit of exposure to live music and I almost always find class D amps very enjoyable indeed. Sure, they vary amongst themselves in terms of presentation, although probably not as much as ss or thermionic amps, but I do think that there is an underlying class D sound, and I find that to be very natural and unforced. Very often, when I first try out a class D amp after using other amplifier technologies there's a sense of 'rightness' a "Yes, that's how it should go" feeling. I do find it baffling that others have an equally strong negative reaction. But I guess a Subjectivist audio forum is a good place to be for this!

I suspect that some folks are uncomfortable with the basic idea of 'switching amps', but personally I don't find that any more objectionable than the much lower sampling frequencies of digital audio, and I can and do enjoy that very much indeed.

Baffling!