I think this has been touched upon before but the biggest qualm people seem to have with D amp technology is this sense of lack of palpability in the midrange, some of the English flathearthers called it lack of "grunt" and I perceive it more like a real sense of "hollowness" that relies on massive number of watts that is accompanied with efficiency. I call it "hollow watts" as some of these especially switching power supply versions of D amps can muster couple of Kwatts at some levels but really cannot phantom below 2 watts.
From all these makers of D amps out there with the many types of modules used, the only one that I can think of that seems to have found some sense of grunt and real power where is counts seem to be Henry Ho of H2O audio. The biggest difference between his creations and those of other people, he seems to think that standard, analogue grossly overbuilt power supplies CANNOT be easily replaced.
There is no other manufacturer that to me seems to have gotten this challenge of making really good sounding D amps that can run neck to neck and even surpass a standard bear of Class AB amp. There are many defenders of these D amps, but the numbers of what their owners think about them is seen in the number of D amps that have gotten RAVE reviews across the NET and yet, wind up like dead/poisoned fish on the shores of Audiogon. #1 brand that seems to be overrated Bel Canto, even NuForce is there.
The affordable Tripath based amps that are low powered (anything below 100 watts) are affordable enough but not one of them seems to have tempted me into pulling the trigger.
Going back to the different ways of executing a D module to sound really really good, the real way of doing it is expensive and quite heavy. No escaping it.
BTW, anyone thinking about selling their Class A.2 Pass Laboratories creations on the X range for 15% of their original price because they have found the latest and the greatest in a D amp, ping me ASAP!
