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Class D amps sound inferior?
- Thread starter tb4sbp
- Start date
My 1200 watt class D amp "will" out power your SVT.
speaking of unverified nonsense on the internet, I remember in the old Usenet days somebody on pdx.music arguing that bassists shouldn't use 18" speakers on stage because the sound waves they produce are so long you can't hear them without being at the back of the club. I patiently tried to explain that a note has the same frequency and wavelength regardless of the speaker it's played through, but some people are stubborn and quite certain in their misapprehensions of how the universe works.
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MDBass
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I like to think of myself as the judge and I have a jury of my two (p)ears, but the sentiment is the same.
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised to hear a difference between my pf500 and an svt-cl, different topologies and different price points make an identical sound difficult if not impossible. That being said, I have yet to find it deficient in the tone department by any stretch of the imagination. It's a good amp, it is as it does.
No it isn't. This nonsense really is BS.
D class amps are not digital.
If the sound of D Class amps was inferior quality they wouldn't be significantly outselling every other class of amp.
And it's not just bass systems, all major touring and festival PA systems use D class power amps.
The bottom line is there are great class d amps and crappy ones just like every other type of amp. Class d is not in any way inferior technology imo. It gets a lot of hate for various reasons. One of the biggest ones is because a lot of musicians are tight on money and flip gear to buy new stuff and class D made our old heavy amps practically worthless on the used market. So a lot of people were bitter about that. Another problem was that like any other newish technology there are some growing pains. Lot of people bought class d amps like the earlier ampeg SVT7 amps that crapped out on them which you can see plenty of if you search it right here on talkbass. I know for me personally I ended up with my current Mesa subway rig (its class d ) but for a long time I stayed away from class d stuff. My first experience with class d amps was the SWR headlite and it was kind of silly compared to the big 750 I had. Although I do think it’s kind of funny how so many people got so excited about the trace Elliot elf head thinking it was some new cool thing to have a tiny lower powered class d amp when I was thinking “you could have bought a SWR headlite 15 years ago!!!” Lol
but yeah There are plenty of great class D amps these days. Mesa subway series, aguilar tone hammer series, Bergantino makes great ones also. I highly recommend amps in the 500w-1000w range though. It’s kind of silly to get a low powered class d head when you can get something like the Mesa d-800 that’s 800w and is under 6 lbs.
Maybe Peavey's the problem here? I owned one of their wretched DataBass amps back in the 90s. It was billed as a "digital" amp and I believe it may have been one of the first Class D amps, so maybe Peavey poisoned the well and we're still dealing with it today.
I've been playing bass since 1969. I've owned a Fender Bassman with the small 2x12 cab, A Kustom 200 w/2x15 cab, a Traynor YBA3 W/8x10 cab, Sunn 200S (still have), a Peavey Mark IV, various pre/power amp configurations. I now have 3 Class D amps. I have a Fender Rumble 500, a Fender Rumble 500C, and a Ampeg PF500. The class D's might sound a little different than the older led sleds but I had no problem connecting with them. If I buy another amp head it will be a tube head just for the heck of it.
I have a number of different amps and have both an Eden class A/B amp and an Eden Class D amp. I've used my Eden class A/B amp as my main amp since I bought it in 2010. I got the Eden class D amp because I wanted something light and easy to load-n/out for a small venue that one of my groups played a LOT...almost every Friday night.
My "big amp" is an Eden WT500/800 (upgraded to 800-watts rms bridged into 8 ohms). It is one of the Eden WT "hybrid" amps meaning it has a tube in with its otherwise solid-state preamp section. The tube is located in the impedance-matching section operating within specific parameters to give the amp that warm sound that the Eden WT amps are known for. In its rack, it weighs ~36-lbs. The Eden class D amp is their TN-226. It weighs 4.7-lbs and puts out 225-watts rems into 4 ohms. I keep it in its shoulder bag when I'm not using it. Since this amp does not have a hybrid preamp, I was wondering if it would have the warmth that my WT500/800 does. I doubted it would. I was pleasantly surprised the first night I played through it that yes, it did indeed have that nice warm Eden sound that my big Eden amp did.
Come to find out it uses the same "Golden Ear" chip (THAT-4301) Eden had used in their WT330, 390, and 405 amps. Those were WT amps that had a simplified EQ system, adjustable compressor, and used that Golden Ear chip for warmth among other things. That little class D amp sounds every bit as good as my WT500/800. I have a new class D amp coming on order, a DNA-800 amp, that will hopefully arrive this week. David Nordschow founded Eden in 1976 and designed all their amps and cabs until he left in 2008. In 2010 he opened his new company DNA (David Nordschow Amplification). I expect his DNA-800 amp to arrive this week and at 800-watts into 4 ohms I expect it will take over as my main amp.
Al Kraft
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Uninformed hype marketing by real amplifier companies have in some cases helped perpetuate this myth as well. I'm relatively sure their engineering departments weren't proud of the misrepresentation and would not have supported the ad copy had they been consulted.
Simply go to any legitimate electrical engineering information source and research amplifier classes...the facts are clear.
Simply go to any legitimate electrical engineering information source and research amplifier classes...the facts are clear.
Yes. Digital amps don't sound quite right because the sound is made up of 1's and 0's, which eliminates the warmth in the old "lead sled" Analog amps. It's a little known fact that the "A" in class AB stands for "Analog" and the "B" stands for "Big" and anything analog and big has to sound good. Actually the best amps are now class H amps. It's another little known fact that the "H" in Class H stands for "Heavy", and obviously anything heavy sounds good.
The "D" in Class D on the other hand, actually stands for "Dinky" and anything Dinky by definition sounds bad. Class D/Digital/Dinky sounds bad because Digital sounds sterile while Analog (tape or vinyl, of course) sounds better. What is really needed is to go back to class Analog/Big/Heavy and to hold our speakers together with tape. Or vinyl. Only then can we achieve the warmth of Analog. Incidentally, the "Warmth" of analog also comes from the heat given off by the older amplifiers, which was high enough to melt the polar ice caps from the concerts being performed at Madison Square Garden.
I long for the good old days when we needed five additional 18 wheelers to haul the amp racks, five more forklifts to unload them, and tons more 240V 3-phase power to run the sound system. [wistful sigh].
The "D" in Class D on the other hand, actually stands for "Dinky" and anything Dinky by definition sounds bad. Class D/Digital/Dinky sounds bad because Digital sounds sterile while Analog (tape or vinyl, of course) sounds better. What is really needed is to go back to class Analog/Big/Heavy and to hold our speakers together with tape. Or vinyl. Only then can we achieve the warmth of Analog. Incidentally, the "Warmth" of analog also comes from the heat given off by the older amplifiers, which was high enough to melt the polar ice caps from the concerts being performed at Madison Square Garden.
I long for the good old days when we needed five additional 18 wheelers to haul the amp racks, five more forklifts to unload them, and tons more 240V 3-phase power to run the sound system. [wistful sigh].
I remember those... they called the power amp "Digital Energy Conversion Amplifiers" .... heheh...
They were actually pretty good. I don't remember anyone really complaining about the sound. The speaker was decent and they had good clarity. But I think they were heavy as hell and I think the knobs used to come off very easily.
I dunno, I've heard many musicians that attempt to run their amps output full square wave into the speaker load.
If you listen to no one else ......
... always listen to THIS guy when it comes to amplification. Seriously.
If it was digital, the sound coming out of your speakers would be reminiscent of a modem.
I primarily use class D amps and they sound perfectly natural to my ears. Sure, they don't have tube characteristics. But class D is on par with class A/B IMO.
I primarily use class D amps and they sound perfectly natural to my ears. Sure, they don't have tube characteristics. But class D is on par with class A/B IMO.
I've always loved this one. Equally great is @agedhorse 's rebuke that, if that were true, headphones wouldn't work.
Nope. Class D amps sound great.
glad I could contribute and solve the confusion here.
glad I could contribute and solve the confusion here.
