Wow. Not funny and a martyr. You must be a blast at parties.
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now that was pretty funny.
Well, I mostly had a good time here on the forum.
Learned a good deal of stuff, and passed on as much knowledge that I could.
Happy witch hunt!
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Dude, this happens frequently with you. It really is you. Maybe time for some introspection.
Maybe something gets lost in translation. He's from Denmark. His English is good, but maybe the nuances are what's killing him. Things that are funny there are offensive here. Maybe.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark
Nah. He has no problems with nuance when he's arguing or twisting things to make it seem like he's being attacked after he's been snarky and rude. He's just not as funny as he thinks he is.
Yeah, I know. I thought maybe it's because there is like ten minutes of daylight up there, but the days are getting longer now. Heh.
No, I mean, if someone is completely happy with their amp, then why change? I get that.
But, that doesn't mean that the Class D amps don't work as well. I've been gigging, first, a GB Shuttle 9; then a Demeter/Minnie 800 or Crest ProLite 3.0; and most recently a Berg B|Amp. There are others; but, most with either the 700ACS or 250ASX2 output sections have plenty of heft. I also favor the features you describe. Both the Berg and GB have those features. I'm pretty sure others in the same class do as well.
As I said, if it ain't broke, don't fix it applies. But, there are definitely options nowadays.
- Jun 29, 2006
- 5,148
- 3,216
- Disclosures
- President, CEO, CFO, CIO, Chief Engineer, Technician, Janitor - Reiner Amplification
Dude - are you kidding? The only advantages standard Redbook CD has over a good vinyl system are greater dynamic range, reduced background noise, and convenience. Faster sampling rates than Redbook may help with timbre, envelope and time values, but if you can listen under controlled conditions, it's hard not to recognize that vinyl gets a whole lot more information - subtle, but telling information - into your brain.
Never said they don't work as well. OP asked if anyone still prefers AB amps, which I answered. I prefer the GK 700rb2 over every micro I've tried. I'm sure the other options you mention (one of which I briefly owned) are great. Just not for me.
Another thing we've learned about bass gear, over the past 60 years, is that new designs will always be viewed with suspicion if they are smaller, lighter, cheaper, etc. This goes all the way back to when Leo Fender came out with a little portable bass that you play by touching the strings, and that gets its sound from electricity.
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- Feb 12, 2006
- 60,994
- 5
- 220,791
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- Development Engineer-Mesa Boogie, Development Engineer-Genzler (pedals), Product Support-Genz Benz
Another good question. In many of my discussions with the IcePower development team in Denmark we discussed the importance of building this clipping management into the amp module itself, similar to the dynamic re-scaling of a digital processor when it sees itself "running out of numbers" to work with (range). Early modules had no meaningful clipping management, and the results were in fact quite dreadful. Amp manufacturers were saying that class d couldn't possibly work, and listen to the proof. At that time (maybe 13-14 years ago) I had already had a fair amount of experience with class D in general and the IcePower platform specifically, and I had already gained a lot of experience managing overdriven signals in high powered class AB power amps. By analyzing what was actually happening, we developed a way to limit the negative effects of clipping the module (which was pretty much unmarketable) and once we were successful our first product was the Shuttle 3.0 which lived virtually unchanged from when it was introduced until the company was shut down by the "Big F".
As IcePower introduced new modules, gradually this added circuitry was implemented withing the module itself... at least to the point that the class D product was viable stand alone and could still be improved with clipping event management. The challenge is to maintain the attack and feel under heavy overdrive conditions. Of course there were also similar things going on with thermal management and the inclusion of additional, more effective ways of managing the thermal headroom without adversely affecting the various thermal protection and tracking circuits. Once again, when the 250ASX2 module was released, other manufacturers attempted products with it and the word on the street was that the module just couldn't work for bass guitar. In fact, because it wasn't "rated " for 4 ohm BTL operation I received a lot of disrespectful comments (on TB) that roughly equated to me being really stupid. Well, guess what? Scott and I studied the living daylights out of the modules, gathering data and discovered a whole level of hidden performance that was available provided you knew where to look. In fact, Scott, Jeff and I received a patent for the technology behind the use of this module (included thermal and clip management IP) which resulted in the very successful Shuttle 9.0, 9.2, ShuttleMax 9.2 and Streamliner 900. Once we released these products, the competition quickly caught on, but it took understanding what was going on under the hood to make that bold first step. Some of these concepts are used in the newer modules as well.
So yes, there is a lot of improvements that can be made to increase the performance beyond what the data sheets might indicate. As the technology evolves, this will get better and better. It's becoming pretty mature now, I was working with it maybe 18 years ago in pro audio, and in spite of early predictions that it was nothing but a passing fad, and that something that light couldn't possibly reproduce bass, virtually every pro audio touring sub amp is SMPS and class D. I suppose those that should be eating their words these days are suffering from convenient memory loss as to their earlier opinions eh?
I can't get into any of the details of our current products, but you can be sure that clipping behavior is not a problem with anything I design (go ahead and hit the Subway amp hard into output limits and you enter output tube emulation circuitry) and I would suspect that the Jeff's Magellan has paid close attention to this sort of stuff as well based on player comments that I have heard. It's important stuff and hard to ignore if you plan on making high quality amps.
Jonathan, if ANYONE could make a class D sound good its you... but...99.9999999% of the class D converts are not playing your amp!You need to come by and visit!
And those other amps simply suck.
I hate to be dismissive of other's taste, but commercial class D amps simply blow. They're disposable amps at best.
