On the topic of solid state, what about Class D?

Love the sound of my Lyngdorf SDAI-2175. Very neutral sound but not boring, heaps of power and control with a silky smooth top end.

 

As far as I can see, many class D amps have their bandwidth up to about 50 - 70 kHz only. Could somebody please explain why there is such limitation?
Compare to Odyssey Stratos, e.g.

 

More power is always better, esp in class-D world. Whether or not you want to spend that much for a diy kit is another story.
For reference I listened to a Devialet amp costing some serious grands which I thought might perhaps be comparable (or worse dependent of taste) to UCD-s in SQ, different tho. The UCD is still better than wide variety of ss consumer junk. Like the usual Yamaha/Kenwood/Technics receivers and probably better than most class D.
I say go for the NC400 because it's, imo a ridiculous value. You don't see these in 'for sale' forums much for a reason.

 

Switching noise needs to be LPF'd.

Besides most tranducers will crap out if you feed anything more than 20KHz.

 

The nc400 kit is no more complicated than IKEA furniture. The assembly should not really be a factor for the price.

 

DSP still need DACs when outputting to the amp section, they are just usually integrated. Although there is no reason why you can't have a 3-way system using 3 x Yggdrasil DACs.

 

Wow, the complete mono kit looks very neat indeed. Hung off the back of a suitable pre, a pair of those could be big fun.

 

The Hypex and ICE modules are building blocks, designers usually customize the input stage to get a better result than stock. While there are many affordable class D amps, they also can get pretty expensive. The NAD M22 is 3K and the top offerings from CIA, Bel Canto and others are around that price range. I have one and think class D definitely has benefits. They are efficient and compact and the better ones are capable of giving very good sound. They are typically tonally "neutral", very clean, quick, quiet and controlled. I also notice mine sounds better when left on. I use other amps too, class D is definitely a different sound especially relative to tubes or Pass designs. The very top of the frequency range can be a little dry at times, of course the bass is amazing.

 

(((New Math + Creative Physics) * Twat Waffle ) - Common Sense ) = WwFLC (WwTwCGAW)

Actually I've no f'ing clue, just feeling spiky, irritated, garrulous, agitated, and generally annoyed with what I have to do next.

--

*What we Felt Like Charging (aka What we Think we Can Get Away With).

 

NC400 amp module - 325 Euro... 385 usd - https://www.hypexshop.com/DetailServlet?detailID=4466
SMPS400 power supply - 180 Euro... 213 usd - https://www.hypexshop.com/DetailServlet?detailID=4664
full kit - 600 Euro... 771 usd - https://www.hypexshop.com/DetailServlet?detailID=7616

I'm not all up and up on power supply design, but the Hypex one at least looks reasonably substantive to my eyes, though I don't exactly know what I should be looking for. What about it makes it "cheapass"? I was going by the assumption that similar efforts that went into improving their amp modules also went into their power supply designs.

 

I wondered the same thing just recently. I suppose it's more telling about Schiit than it is the Hypex or everything else basically.

Pff, yeah. I won't be saying that again.

 

As it happens I did a BOM for a quite a bit more beefy bipolar psu than what's inside Vidar and got somewhere around the $$$ (actually 10-20% over) mark of the Hypex SMPS600N400.
Now, the linear, choke filtered, regulated and after that healthily cap bypassed psu will be better on practically everything, but that doesn't take away that the Hypex one is still decent psu and probably better in many regards (damping, power headroom and maybe even noise) than wimpy linear ones in some amps. It did show in listening test, cheesy psu can't deliver that bass. The fact that it costs so much is disturbing, though.

 

I've got to admit I like the idea of staying PCM all the way from source to the speakers. You've got to do the D to A conversion somewhere, and if it's more efficient to amplify the PCM than the sine-wave, then it' worth pursuing doing it at the end.

But going from PCM to analog and back to PCM and back to analog is like playing Chinese whispers. It just can't be good.

Cheers,
Jeff.

 

Lyngdorf does the same thing with the Tdai-2170. Had an audition with some Monitor audio gx-200 speakers i believe. And it did not impress but i blame the speakers mostly.
Something about the class D tech with a shitty ribbon and metal drivers bringing out the worst in eachother. Monitor audio has a rep for being bright though.
I asked to hear it with some smooth softdome speakers and they said no. That was reason enough for me to say no to both the shop and the amp.

Others have been happy with the Lyngdorf though so maybe worth an audition.

 

FWIW, my favorite suite at LAAS featured Class D amplification, and was my first introduction to a Ncore based implementation. I had no idea (other than hype) Class D had come so far. Super impressive. Now this was not off the shelf N400 DIY kit, and was productized into a chassis priced far higher. Not sure what the power delivery in it is, etc. But despite having a great amp already, the empty space on my amp shelf and thought of building those mono blocks has been nagging me ever since. If I could pick out a negative, it would have been that the Ncore didn't have the stage depth of good tubes. But even that could be chalked up to the limitations of the diminutive suite, and Jedi mind tricks.

 

Oh geez, I thought those were class D powered fidget spinners for a second...