Old but evergreen argument, class AB vs D!

[JCsAudio]

I have an old Alpine 3548 that is made in Japan. About 6 years ago I installed it in place of a really cheap Kenwood class AB of about equal power. The difference in perceived headroom was astonishing. I still have it to this day.

I have my eye on those Mmats HiFi class D amplifiers. I almost pulled the trigger on them a few times. I have too many expensive hobbies though, kids in private schools, and one income so I didn’t do it yet.

[geolemon]

Now I’m going to contradict what I just said and say those DLS amplifiers, if like mine, will be tough to beat. DLS makes some really good.....like magically good, sounding class AB amplifiers. I had a Rockford Fosgate Ti600 that I pitted up against my DLS cci44 in a blind test and it was very close, but the Rockford Fosgate was also class AB.

My DLS amps are about 10 years old, and I just have a monoblock and a 2 channel. I love them, but they are for my traditional favorite setup - which is "simple is best" - stereo up front, mono sub in the back.

New car, new opportunities - may leave the DLS amps in storage.
However, I *do* see DLS has a compact line now, that cc series... They are slightly larger than the Rockford amps, but still compact. The only real downside would be that I'd need to buy two four channel amps and a separate sub amp. I'm not opposed to that, but would probably really need to find a deal to justify paying a "third amp" premium over what I could get with the Rockford 4 and 5 channel power amps, and part of my desire here is to minimize my amp rack to a hidden location (or locations).

[cueball981]

I am almost 45, and I too can recall the days of only Class A/B amps. Up until my current install, which I'm running 2 Alpine PDX-V9s, I've always used A/B class amplifiers. My last system used Soundstream DII series and Phoenix Gold MS amps. I've also ran an Alpine MRV-F357, Soundstream MC245, Phoenix Gold Z450, to name a few.

I can honestly say I can hear no difference between my V9s and all the previous amps I've used. To be honest, the detail these amps produce is amazing to me!

[JCsAudio]

My DLS amps are about 10 years old, and I just have a monoblock and a 2 channel. I love them, but they are for my traditional favorite setup - which is "simple is best" - stereo up front, mono sub in the back.

New car, new opportunities - may leave the DLS amps in storage.
However, I *do* see DLS has a compact line now, that cc series... They are slightly larger than the Rockford amps, but still compact. The only real downside would be that I'd need to buy two four channel amps and a separate sub amp. I'm not opposed to that, but would probably really need to find a deal to justify paying a "third amp" premium over what I could get with the Rockford 4 and 5 channel power amps, and part of my desire here is to minimize my amp rack to a hidden location (or locations).

I did my own amplifier blind A vs B shootout with a bunch of amplifiers, both class AB and Class D and one of them was a DLS cci44 which was the top ranking amplifier in the shootout. Its a very good sounding amplifier. Unfortunately I sold it recently for a good price. I had a Rockford Fosgate Ti600 that about tied with it in the tests which was also class AB.

[JCsAudio]

...and, now here I am. Back with Class A/B amps.

But I will still concede that a good Class D can sound every bit as good as an A/B

What did you do with the Mmats? You just bought those!

[Cutaway]

Great little video by DAmore showing on the scope some notable differences in Class A/B vs H vs D using a 40hz burst and a set of Klipsh as the amplifier load. I thought i would share and see what your thoughts are

[JCsAudio]

That class D looks like JL Audio. This is why you do not drive your amplifiers to clipping and you purchase enough power so that isn’t likely to happen. when I tested class a AB versus class D amplifiers, the amount of power seem to make more of a difference than the amplifier class. All the best amplifiers I had were over 85 watts per channel.

[nadams5755]

yep, don't clip your amps folks.

[ckirocz28]

I'm old. Just turned 46. So I'm old enough to know when there were zero Class D car audio amps. I'm old enough to remember the days when "$1/watt" was a "you better jump on that sale price!" super bargain.
And I'm old enough to remember when Class D came out - and in a lot of ways, dragged an already struggling Car Audio industry down further Why would customers buy a 300 watt class A/B sub amp when they could buy a 1000w class D sub amp for the same price?
I'm not saying the decline of the greats was totally due to "Class D", but it's not entirely coincidence either - Phoenix Gold (sold to a holding corporation), PPI (sold to a holding corporation), Orion (sold to a holding corporation), Eclipse (dead), and too many others to name. There was already the debate about sound quality theoretically decreasing from the digital nature of CD audio (pixellating the previously purely analog curves), and now there was pressure for everyone to cheapen their amplifier lines to compete with Class D amps. And back when they first come out, they WERE "subwoofer amp ONLY", because the switching nature of class D with zero overlap wasn't that great yet, it didn't produce a perfectly flat rail voltage, so they simply weren't full range amps.

I'm willing to give them a shot though. I've become wildly curious about these super compact form factor amps. I'm also wildly curious if class D truly has become as good as the Class A/B of old. Currently at the top of my short list are Rockford's 4 and 5 channel Power amps, though I haven't purchased yet... and I'm sitting on two DLS amps (EDIT: older, full-size - class A/B, not compact) that I could be using instead.

"There was already the debate about sound quality theoretically decreasing from the digital nature of CD audio (pixellating the previously purely analog curves),"
^^That particular argument has always been total bull....Anyone that has ever listened to any record or cassette that was older than brand new knows those formats deteriorate so fast that there is no argument at all.
Regarding your curiosity about class D amps being just as good as old class A/B amps, they absolutely are (I'm 48, so I remember). The only downside is that the super small amps simply don't have room for a lot of capacitors, so they may not have the same dynamic response, an external capacitor could make up for that. Honestly, though, I haven't noticed any sort of deficiencies at all. I'm using JL Audio XD 400/4's, they're quite nice.

[ckirocz28]

Great little video by DAmore showing on the scope some notable differences in Class A/B vs H vs D using a 40hz burst and a set of Klipsh as the amplifier load. I thought i would share and see what your thoughts are

I'm not sure what all that means, I don't run my amps into clipping. I mean, it's an interesting test that shows a very noticeable difference between the different amp designs, but we generally don't listen to music with our amps constantly clipping.