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RE: Good post. A similar experience/confession...

Hi Enophile,

As a former Apogee owner and current Acoustat owner (1+1, Spectra 2200 and Spectra 4400) I too tried out Class D amplification. I owned a pair of Class D monoblocks from a small Swiss company and a PS Audio HCA-2, which even got tried out on a pair of Apogee Grands that a friend of mine in Germnay owns. I have also heard ICE based amps on Apogees as well as a couple of different brands of UcD based Class D amps. My first impression was of clarity and definition and great bass. Dig deeper and you realize that tone is seriously lacking in the mids and highs.

The difference is that it is simply not grating in the same way that SS can be so in many ways it is more tolerable; however, it is still far to dry from what I know to be correct. This can be clearly heard with acoustic instrument recordings, such as good classical recordings. In a way this harmonically "stripped" (for lack of a better word) sound is what people want because it does allow for instruments not to step all over each other and thus creates a well ordered but quite flat soundstage.

It has been my experience that amplifiers and/or source components that have issues in the highs often have difficulty accurately portraying soundstage depth. It is almost always somewhat foreshortened compared to a component that truly reproduces the highs accurately. Some have been so bad as to render the soundstage completely flat!

For me, I am not willing to make a tradeoff in instrument tone to gain a smidgen more "clarity". I have managed to find other amps that will give natural tone and yet maintain the same transparency, dynamics and soundstaging of Class D.

I will be curious as to your conclusions when you finally decide whether for you it is really better or not rather than merely different.

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