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Post by bolle on Mar 6, 2015 5:31:09 GMT -5
How would a class D stand up to the current EMO amps? performance and price? Mitch It's hard to tell, but there are some very good class D's out there. Exhibit A, the nCores that I have. Mark Well I switched from a Sherbourn PA 7-350 to Class D Amps. IMG STA-2000D, 4-channel with 4x500W@4Ohm employing Pascal Audio S-Pro 2 modules. For me it was a step up regarding SQ. Each amp costs 799 Euros... I tried out the Hypex UCD - they didn´t perform well for me, clearly inferior to the 7-350. The nCore is another breed and for example also employed in the new NAD amps for a quite reasonable price.
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Post by rcheliguy on Mar 6, 2015 7:48:24 GMT -5
A hypex UCD180 is roughly $80 each. Not sure what OEM pricing is, but maybe they get a discount... Say 10%. Of coarse now they need to get it shipped to them, maybe $5-10 per part. please note I have applied knowledge of my industry and came up with this as pure speculation. I have never worked directly in the audio industry so my guess/analysis could be completely wrong and I fully admit this. I won't talk about specifics in markup structure for equipment like this, but suffice it to say that for most markets a 4-6 X multiplier on production cost is typical. OEM pricing is much better than you might think, but part of that is because the DIY pricing is set artificially high so that people don't see products based on their electronics as a rip off. However remember that production markup does not equal margin. Add shipping, quality control, packaging, warranty replacement, up front one time engineering costs and other overhead for keeping a company in business. Class D amplifiers are now running at very high frequencies which makes them sonically excellent, but once you have a switching frequency in the half MHz range you have to deal with radio frequency shielding and other issues. The issue I see is that Class D amplifiers are basically colorless and otherwise sonically neutral and very inexpensive to build. This presents a number of very difficult issues for the manufacturers in audio. How do you differentiate between amps with no sonic character? They aren't forward, lean, lush, < stick your favorite superlative here > They are just accurate. What happens when an amplifier that could be sold for $500 is clearer and cleaner than a $20,000 Class A amplifier ? Unfortunately what I predict is that there will be lots of lower wattage AV receivers with 5 and 7 channel Class D amplifiers that don't compete with the expensive gear with the higher margins. The good news is that they will be very efficient in the 90-92% range and they will sound great! AV receivers already have piles of electronics and features packed in. I've got a Yamaha 675 that sports UHD uprezzing, 7.2, and streams audio off the internet. So that is a great place for these amps since people will replace their AV receivers whenever the next new buzzword feature comes out. However I believe there will be artificially high price setting on the higher wattage Class D amplifiers. I see one manufacture selling NCore 1200 based mono blocks for $12,000 a pair. I can almost guarantee that most of their production cost is in the pretty billet aluminum shell and not the electronics. I'm not sure how long that will last.
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Post by rcheliguy on Mar 6, 2015 7:52:44 GMT -5
I believe that there will be a market for electronics with sonic character for a while longer, BUT here is the rub. With a Class D amplifier I believe that we will eventually have the ability to digitally add any sonic character you want. Would you like a little harmonic distortion for warmth? How about a slight phase shift at different frequencies. There is no reason that we couldn't characterize how the best amplifiers on the planet sound and then digitally mimic that behavior.
There is something else at work here too.
Sure you don't want to hurt your own margins on more expensive products, BUT if you don't someone else will!
There is a big rule in business is that if your product line is about to be cannibalized, you want to be the company doing the cannibalizing and you want to be taking market share away from other companies at the same time.
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Mar 6, 2015 11:03:09 GMT -5
I've been following this thread, and the short answer is that we've been considering Class D amplifiers for quite some time. Since we design our Class A/B amps to be accurate to begin with, we don't see the "lack of sonic character" to be a problem (we like neutral); the reason we've been holding off is simply that so far we haven't been able to get comparable performance and sound quality from the available Class D options - at least not at a cost to us that will translate to a comparable price for our customers. To put it simply, the cheap Class D options don't sound very good, and the ones that do sound good enough to wear our Emotiva logo have all been expensive enough that we would have had to charge more for them. (We'd love to offer a ten pound version of the XPA-1 that's 85% efficient, but only if it will sound just as good, and only if we can offer it without charging you twice as much.) However, for those of you who keep asking, Class D amplifiers continue to sound better, and the prices of the good-sounding ones continue to get more reasonable, so I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a few Class D additions to the Emo amplifier family sometime soon.
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Post by deltadube on Mar 6, 2015 12:20:48 GMT -5
I'm pretty confident the new amps will be Class D. I don't know how else they'd pack much into a 1U amp. Anyone know of any amps that are 1U but aren't class D? I'm sure there are SOME... but 2U seems to generally be the common minimum height. Smaller than that, it gets harder to cool. I'm on the beta test, and they are class A with a unique water cooled approach to allow the small case.. They sound a lot better once the garden hose supply line is broken in, though. I modded mine and circulate the water from my aquarium through it. This has enhanced the sound making it almost fishy to the ear. The Beatles Octopus's Garden never sounded better. Mark I really in enjoyed breaking in a few new virgins back in my day !!!
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Post by rcheliguy on Mar 6, 2015 13:54:23 GMT -5
Keith, Thanks for the heads up! It puts a LOT of speculating to rest Anyway my XPA-2 has only seen a couple weeks of use. It's probably a bit premature to be asking about something new....
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Post by rneill on Mar 6, 2015 14:24:25 GMT -5
I've been following this thread, and the short answer is that we've been considering Class D amplifiers for quite some time. Since we design our Class A/B amps to be accurate to begin with, we don't see the "lack of sonic character" to be a problem (we like neutral); the reason we've been holding off is simply that so far we haven't been able to get comparable performance and sound quality from the available Class D options - at least not at a cost to us that will translate to a comparable price for our customers. To put it simply, the cheap Class D options don't sound very good, and the ones that do sound good enough to wear our Emotiva logo have all been expensive enough that we would have had to charge more for them. (We'd love to offer a ten pound version of the XPA-1 that's 85% efficient, but only if it will sound just as good, and only if we can offer it without charging you twice as much.) However, for those of you who keep asking, Class D amplifiers continue to sound better, and the prices of the good-sounding ones continue to get more reasonable, so I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a few Class D additions to the Emo amplifier family sometime soon. My first Emotiva product hasn't even got here yet and I am already in love with this company! The fact that the XMC-1 got delayed so long until you were happy with it before releasing tells me everything I need to know about the companies values and priorities! Thank you for not putting out substandard products until you can put it out the way it should be and you're satisfied with it. The big box companies would just release crap and maybe deal with it next year, or maybe not deal with it ever... If only more companies were ran like this
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Post by rcheliguy on Jun 15, 2015 10:04:55 GMT -5
From a completely different angle...
I just had an Energy Audit done on my home.
My lighting which is all LED in the heavy use areas and florescent in others, and brand new high efficiency dual fuel variable speed HVAC systems earned me 10's for lighting and HVAC.
I got dinged for my downstairs refrigerator because it was old and had a very high current draw.
Back on topic.....
Given how incredibly efficient that Class D amplifiers are (90+%), I suspect that any audiophile who wants to be green will eventually go that way and will start to see worst to best as Class A, Class A/B, and finally Class D as most desirable on the list.
In addition I found that when I switched to all LED back lit monitors in my office ( 3 x 24" monitors ) it stayed much cooler and I don't need my AC running as much.
Given how hot some amps run, it is a double whammy since you need more AC to compensate for that inefficiency.
I'm throwing a dart into the future on this one, but I think at some point amplifier efficiency will become more of an issue.
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Post by jmilton on Jun 15, 2015 10:09:30 GMT -5
Those of us from NE rely on those class A ampli-fryers to get us through the Winter.
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Post by knucklehead on Jun 15, 2015 11:00:26 GMT -5
For anyone guessing that a 1RU (1.75") size amp means digital take a look at Outlaw's 2200 amps - its an A/B design with a pancaked toroidal (Outlaw spells it 'to rroidal' ) that are 'just under 2" tall according to their description so that might mean 1RU - I haven't researched it to know for sure. Personally I'd love to see Emotiva bring out digital amps in 1 2 3 5 & 7 channel - and why not 9 or 11? Maybe you can buy a single chassis and add modules as you need them?
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emovac
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Post by emovac on Jun 15, 2015 12:43:01 GMT -5
I have Wyred4Sound Class D products, had them for over three years. STI-500, 2 channel integrated amp, and MC7x250, 7-channel power amp. Completely trouble free. Both sound great and are dead quiet. They run cool, and don't use much power.
Emotiva should examine the class D market, but as Keith said, it has to be at a price point for the Emotiva audience.
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Post by djoel on Jun 15, 2015 13:01:58 GMT -5
I've been looking into Class D amps, and would love to keep the electric bill down, and save my back a world of hurt when moving the gear for sure.
Djoel
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Post by rcheliguy on Jun 15, 2015 20:24:17 GMT -5
I have Wyred4Sound Class D products, had them for over three years. STI-500, 2 channel integrated amp, and MC7x250, 7-channel power amp. Completely trouble free. Both sound great and are dead quiet. They run cool, and don't use much power. Emotiva should examine the class D market, but as Keith said, it has to be at a price point for the Emotiva audience. I was seriously considering a Wyred4Sound amp at one point and if I were to ever test out a new amplifier, that would top my list. Even if it sounded identical, I really like the efficiency and for some geeks like me it is almost a quest to reduce my environmental footprint. That said my XPA-2 is sometimes off for many days in a row, so it doesn't top my list of things that would matter. A new downstairs refrigerator and heatpump style water heater would have a largest impact. My stereo amp is till moot. I forgot about the fact that they are tiny and light. Yup no back breaking labor... Given the fact that my speakers have a Class D amp driving the woofer section, it almost seems like an obvious option to add a class D amp to drive the top section too. Eventually my 3 component type stereo could end up being just 2 and eliminate the speaker cables. Oppo 105D with balanced XLR cables directly to the speakers. Ta Da! Done.
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emovac
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Post by emovac on Jun 16, 2015 0:30:08 GMT -5
my whole setup including both amps, a W4S DAC-2, Yamaha AVR, Dynamo sub, Tube buffer, and a couple of sources is using a whopping 2.75 amps as I type (about 375 watts) as measured by my P5 power plant.
Class D rocks for efficiency.
The W4S aren't as heavy as the traditional Class A, A/B stuff, but aren't featherweight either.
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emovac
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Post by emovac on Jun 16, 2015 0:32:38 GMT -5
I have Wyred4Sound Class D products, had them for over three years. STI-500, 2 channel integrated amp, and MC7x250, 7-channel power amp. Completely trouble free. Both sound great and are dead quiet. They run cool, and don't use much power. Emotiva should examine the class D market, but as Keith said, it has to be at a price point for the Emotiva audience. I was seriously considering a Wyred4Sound amp at one point and if I were to ever test out a new amplifier, that would top my list. Even if it sounded identical, I really like the efficiency and for some geeks like me it is almost a quest to reduce my environmental footprint. That said my XPA-2 is sometimes off for many days in a row, so it doesn't top my list of things that would matter. A new downstairs refrigerator and heatpump style water heater would have a largest impact. My stereo amp is till moot. I forgot about the fact that they are tiny and light. Yup no back breaking labor... Given the fact that my speakers have a Class D amp driving the woofer section, it almost seems like an obvious option to add a class D amp to drive the top section too. Eventually my 3 component type stereo could end up being just 2 and eliminate the speaker cables. Oppo 105D with balanced XLR cables directly to the speakers. Ta Da! Done. BTW, if you really like geek stuff, and do high end computer audio, check out the Uptone Audio USB Regen and JRiver Id. Great components.
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Post by mgbpuff on Jun 16, 2015 7:12:30 GMT -5
I have a NuForce 7 ch Cl D amp for my bedroom system. Whenever I use it, I notice that it interferes with my X10 home lighting system ( I Know...old, old stuff). Essentially, it puts ultra high frequency noise in the air and on the power lines. It sounds good though, but if you fear what cell phones may do to your health, you might reconsider Cl D. I have a spare UPA-7 and right now I'm asking myself why I don't just replace the NuForce with it and I can only say it's because the NuForce cost me at least 3X what the UPA-7 did, plus I thought I'd keep some heat out of the bedroom.
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Post by rcheliguy on Jun 16, 2015 8:13:16 GMT -5
I have a NuForce 7 ch Cl D amp for my bedroom system. Whenever I use it, I notice that it interferes with my X10 home lighting system ( I Know...old, old stuff). Essentially, it puts ultra high frequency noise in the air and on the power lines. It sounds good though, but if you fear what cell phones may do to your health, you might reconsider Cl D. I have a spare UPA-7 and right now I'm asking myself why I don't just replace the NuForce with it and I can only say it's because the NuForce cost me at least 3X what the UPA-7 did, plus I thought I'd keep some heat out of the bedroom. That's the thing. In order to get rid of the high frequency issues Class D is effectively a transmitter and needs shielding
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Post by wizardofoz on Jun 16, 2015 8:19:41 GMT -5
I sat down with Dan a couple of weeks ago...seems like forever now...but he offered some info, and while I guess I can't say too much, there are D class amps coming - this was also detailed in a podcast too IIRC. Timeframe I don't know...but now that they have USA production up and running I am guessing there will be much faster to market than MIC was.
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Post by ratso on Jun 18, 2015 7:41:24 GMT -5
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Post by brubacca on Jun 18, 2015 8:10:33 GMT -5
I just ordered a Crown XLS 1500 to try in my HT. I was vey tempted by a XPA-2, but at 1/3 the price i decided to give the crown a shot. Plus 11 lbs instead of 76lb. My back will thank me.
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