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Class D amps sound inferior?

#121
agedhorse said:
No, not unless that is the intent of the designer.
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Ah yes! That world-renowned purveyor (rhymes with Farley-Menton) of cutting-edge innovation, class-leading design, first-class reliability and "Behr-Watts". I can imagine the intent there might well be some kind of heavy compression or transient suppression to protect some susceptible component or other.
 
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#124
swarfrat said:
I had a kitten crawl into my 1x15 once through the tuning port. Hint. You can't scare a cat out of any enclosed space.

My cat prefers class A and AB amps. Class D amps aren't as warm at idle, and only get that way in racket making mode.
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My feral shop cats hang out with my while I design amp no matter what the class. Just have to keep them away from the keyboard or we could end up with unplanned features…
 
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#125
I owned some Class D amps when they first came out and didn't care for the tone at all.
The logical conclusion (at least in my mind) was that Class D wasn't as good.

Then I used a tube pre into the effects return of a GK MBF800. It sounds great and I don't think I could tell the difference between it and my Class AB 1600 watt lead sled.

Before you crucify Class D power amps, you owe it to yourself to connect your favorite pre-amp (effects send out of a integrated bass amp) into a Class D amp.
IMO, this is a valid test that can be done at home quickly.
 
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#129
azureblue said:
I think a good tube pre in front of a class D sounds great.
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I own and use booth tube and SS pre's.
I think any great pre in front of a Class D sounds great! Understand about the differences with tubes vs. SS though (assuming non-sampling).
What if Class D rules and is as good as my SVT-CL (for clean, clear, big soundstage).
I will have to test this.
SVT-CL line out into MB800 vs. SVT-CL on it's own.
 
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#131
Jim C said:
I owned some Class D amps when they first came out and didn't care for the tone at all.
The logical conclusion (at least in my mind) was that Class D wasn't as good.

Then I used a tube pre into the effects return of a GK MBF800. It sounds great and I don't think I could tell the difference between it and my Class AB 1600 watt lead sled.

Before you crucify Class D power amps, you owe it to yourself to connect your favorite pre-amp (effects send out of a integrated bass amp) into a Class D amp.
IMO, this is a valid test that can be done at home quickly.
Click to expand...

I'm about to start back at my practice space after an extended time... I never really did this with my ampeg D class amp... gonna try this next week!
 
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#132
I don't know. I can't for the sake of god find a modern compact amp able to get close to the glory of my 1970s Ampeg V4B but then again... some of the small amps are able to do stuff I can't really get on my Ampeg... It's a tradeoff and, as Agedhorse once said, it's the result of the music industry standards constantly shifting. Amp voicings are a reflection of the sonic interests of players in that era when the amp was constructed and that makes sense to me. We don't have to agree with it (and I mostly don't, to be honest, still haven't found many compact amps that sound good for my personal taste but yeah, whatever, who cares) but it is the way it is.

You can't walk into the store and casually buy the same jeans model you were able to buy in mid 70s... Bell shaped jeans anyone?

Edit: One funny thing - I never cared much for MarkBass gear - always to nasal sounding and gritty and just not my cup of tea.

Then some guy put his MarkBass Ninja 1000 (Richard Bona signature) on sale. Went there... tried it... it's one of my main bass amps atm.

I will still bring my V4B out as my big gun whenever I have the chance but for some gigs... That MarkBass just pumps forever :) How times change right?
 
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#133
OregonJim said:
Actually, Class D *is* digital. The input is converted to a digital signal via pulse width modulation. It is then converted back to analog via a simple low pass filter.
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Actually, it's not digital. It's generally classified as non-linear analog.
 
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#134
Reminds me of a gig in a small club: At some point I felt my SG bass sounded real cool. My first thought was 'Yes that Mywatt (with KT88s) is the real deal!'. And 1 second later:´Hang on a minute, we left it at the rehearsal place, I'm playing on Friedrich's PF350!'.
 
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#137
OregonJim said:
Anything that is reduced to on-off, 1-0 is digital. That's the definition of PWM.
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No, the definition of PWM is a pulse train where the analog signal representation is embedded within the varying width of the pulse train.

Otherwise, by your definition, every square wave signal would be PWM (which of course it's not).

A very GENERAL definition of a digital signal is one where the data is contained within a finite grouping of pulses of typically equal amplitude and width (ie. serial or parallel representation of a word or value), and these values can be manipulated within the digital domain by a digital processes, (adders, multipliers, registers, accumulators and their CPU/MPU/DSP equivalents). Where the width is not equal (due to variations, not because they are PWM), it's the edge transitions that transition the values.

A PWM signal CAN be converted to a digital signal by analyzing the time contained within each pulse, this is where the information is contained within a PWM signal, which is why it's commonly referred to as a non-linear analog process.
 
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#138
Hello, sorry for not responding sooner
I have limited time to access TB
I do not have any problems with class D
I like my class D amp a lot and plan on keeping it for a long time
Just curious that the video said that the square wave exiting a class D amp is not inherently good for sound/tone compared to a sine wave

I do believe that sound is subjective and each to their own
I thought it was interesting and thank you to everyone that responded
 
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#140
tb4sbp said:
Hello, sorry for not responding sooner
I have limited time to access TB
I do not have any problems with class D
I like my class D amp a lot and plan on keeping it for a long time
Just curious that the video said that the square wave exiting a class D amp is not inherently good for sound/tone compared to a sine wave

I do believe that sound is subjective and each to their own
I thought it was interesting and thank you to everyone that responded
Click to expand...
There is not a square wave exiting the amp, there is a very high frequency switching residual present which is WAY above the threshold of hearing (by a factor of ~10) and level of this residual is on the order of 100-1000 times less than the audio signal. It is completely insignificant and in the most controlled double-blind tests it can't even be identified.

The video is nothing but horse pucky masquerading as pseudo-science.
 
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