Sprout 100 ? NAD D 3020 ? Vidar ? Stellar S300

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Your source is no good, you'll at the very least want to connect your phone to a DAC to feed the rest of the system.

 

All of the amp choices listed here are no good EXCEPT for the Vidar: the reason being that it is class A/B. Class D is junk, avoid.

 

IPhone + camera connection kit for lightning to USB 

Modi Multibit.

Vidar

 

That will get you started.

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6 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

Welcome - the first rule of computeraudio.com is to ignore GUTB, or take his posts with many grains of salt...

 

 

 

 

Everyone ignores you; it's a not a rule, though.

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7 hours ago, BigAlMc said:

 

I don't pay attention to those who bang on about Class D. PS Audio are a class act and really look after their customers. 

 

Read the reviews on the M700s and S300. Tube-like is a reccurring comment. The consensus is largely that they knocked it out the park with these and they offer SQ well above their price point. 

 

But plenty other good recommendations on this thread too. 

 

Happy hunting and let us know how you get on. 

 

Cheers, 

Alan 

 

Class D sucks.

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17 minutes ago, BigAlMc said:

 

Like I said, I don't pay attention. 

 

I'll elaborate tho. 

 

I trust my ears. My M700s sound great. 

 

 

What’s your frame of reference? What other class a or a/b amps have you listened to?

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19 minutes ago, RMMN said:

 

@newworld  

Hi Newworld, Thank you for sharing your experience with me. I appreciate very much!

 

Wow, I’m discovering the choices and options in Hi-Fi are more numerous that I had ever imagined. They say in sales give people 4 choices, otherwise they get confused and don’t buy (I used to do photography at a professional level, and it was easy: only two choices: Canon or Nikon, and they are as good as the other).

 

The Cambridge Audio CXA60 and CXA80 look nice and fit in my budget. 

 

PS Audio claims that the lesser version Elac UB6 speaker combined with the Sprout sound fantastic for the price. What makes the Elac’s are hard to drive? 

 

I just deleted a recommendation for expanding your budget and avoiding consumer grade products — you won’t listen so it’s just wasted screenspace.

 

Two factors determine a speaker’s difficulty to drive: sensitivity and impedance / phase curve. Sensitivity is listed in the specs, curves come from technical measurements done as part of reviews (Stereophile is the reference source for most common speakers) and sometimes offered by the speaker manufacturers. The higher the sensitivity the less power they need, the flatter the curve the better.

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3 hours ago, MarkS said:

 I am intrigued.

 

How do you know he won’t listen to your recommendations?  Plus, I would be interested and, perhaps, others would too. 

 

Also, while I see your point on some of the recommendations, do you consider Hagel, Job, Emotiva, and PS Audio to be “consumer grade products?”

 

First, this is a male pursuit. Men generally won’t listen to suggestions that run counter to our currently established opinions. He has his heart set on a consumer product he can order off Amazon and is attainable right now, so no matter what I say he won’t change his mind. I used to post these suggestions anyway knowing I won’t change any minds for the benifit of other readers. The thing is, truth is a popularity contest: if the truth isn’t popular it won’t be accepted. If the truth-teller is unpopular it won’t be accepted.

 

Emotiva is in a gray area of consumer-grade. The others are audiophile-grade, but more in the lower to mid spectrum.

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Can’t go wrong with Pass amps.

 

I was very impressed with the Mark Levinson No. 585.

 

VACs are very nice.

 

Audio Research aren’t known for high value but they are very nice and plentiful in the used market.

 

Esoteric is very high-end sonically.

 

The new Luxmans are getting universal rave reviews.

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1 hour ago, zugisland said:

I just received my new ps m700 monos..thurs..and have been burning them in continuous since then And can tell you I am more then pleasantly surprised. 1st aesthetics..i have the silver and they are gorgeous imho..2..the sound is liquid and allows for great detail which rivaled my now gone pass labs 100.6..vocals are distinct bit not bright and the bass is just captivating and just ripples with energy emanating from my Django xl's.. I love the detail and warmth coming from these..i just picked up a Cary audio DMS..500 and listened to some old 70.s rock Uriah Heep..mqa masters blew me away.

Felt so good to hear some of the old titles I loved growing up listening to finally sound so good..congrats to Ps I love my amps so far and am expecting them to improve even further after the mandatory 100 hour break in

 

They will probably end up on the used market in a few months when you grow tired of the lifelessness, lack of inner detail / emptiness of class D. No one was going to talk you out of them because you have to experience it yourself. When you get to the point of moving on, just go straight to a linear amp and don’t burn a lot of cycles / money trying to fix class D. You can’t fix it, many have tried before you.

 

Try to avoid the psychological trap of pretending they sound good — it won’t work and just delay you moving forward.

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9 minutes ago, BigAlMc said:

 

Congrats on your purchases and glad that you are enjoying them. The M700s are pretty special and I agree with the reviewers who say they perform above there price point. I love mine and don't see me changing amps for a few years at least. 

 

Ignore GUTB. Aside from his sheer lack of class in criticising your purchase rather than wishing you well, he's simply trying to rain on your parade because he's self publicised his agenda against class D so much. I'm guessing he's not heard the M700s but is willing to critisize them on mistaken theories alone. 

 

Cheers, 

Alan 

 

Most everyone here is just looking for validation anyway so my statement will have no effect. If someone else reads it and it helps them realize thier class D amp can’t be fixed and it’s time to move on then it’s a net positive. I would hate to see people lose interest in high-end audio because of a class D experience. I’m very critical of the industry which thinks pushing class D on people for cost reasons is the way forward because they refuse to price quality linear amps at an affordable level.

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1 hour ago, RMMN said:

@zugisland Congratulations on your new setup!! Thank you for sharing that you experienced the M700’s rivalling the sound of the Pass Labs 100 (200W Class A). That says something about the M700’s sound quality.

 

I think more likely a listener is immediately wowed by the high level of control and crispness of class D, especially in comparison with an old class A.

 

Class A is very linear in operation — what goes in is what comes out except larger. The fundamental limitation of class A is just the noise floor. The fundamental limitation of class D is the lack of linearity; what goes in is NOT what comes out. Modern class D designs appear to have alleviated ugly switching artifacts which makes them livable than they used to be, but they still fall off a cliff after 50 kHz.

 

I paid $5,400 for a pair of Linnenberg Allegro monoblocks which is a considerable value for the performance they offer — 1Mhz bandwidth, which is low-passed to 250 kHz on the outputs...that’s 5 times the output bandwidth of a class D. 700 ns rise time, and 120 dB noise (a-weighted). But that level of quality vs price comes at a cost of being stuck at 55 W per channel. Nimble, high resolution, super imagers, but they can’t put out powerful dynamics with average speakers...certainly not with my 4 Ohm 85 dB efficiency Thiels. Hopefully my new ProAc D30Rs will be different but if not then I need to look at a new amp.

 

That $5.4k is a great value. Fact is, the high end industry is charging WAY to much for high end amps. 3k for a pair of monoblocks is more reasonable and is in the reach of a standard married middle-class guy, and this $1-3k price point is utterly littered with class D. This is is what is being pushed as "working man’s high end", instead of Schiit who tries to legitimately put out a high-end linear amp for less than $1k. So when I’m browsing the used market for $10-15k amps that being pushed used for 5-7k, I’m not feeling superior to anyone, I feel a sharp sting of financial burden being pushed on me because the industry is dead set on throwing class D junk at anyone who’s not sone empty nester surgeon or senior executive.

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15 minutes ago, DancingSea said:

 

It’s worth noting that Paul McGowan, co owner/ founder of PS Audio, has an elaborate all Emotiva home theatre system. 

 

Emotiva makes good stuff!

 

They make crap. To a home theatre enthusiast that just needs power, sharp highs and thudding lows Emotiva is pretty good without spending big $$$ on luxury brand names like say, Anthem. To an audiophile though they make junk. I wouldn’t even consider Emotiva entry-level.

 

When I was visiting the Emotiva room at AXPONA I overheard the rep giving someone a spiel about how Emotiva is being taken seriously as a high end manufacturer without the price tag or something to that effect. The reason why they aren’t taken seriously by audiophiles is because when I tried thier BasX class A/B amp (forget the model) it was the WORST amp I’ve ever heard, second only to the old ICEPower Teac integrated (which is truly unlistenable). My thought process when buying it was "how bad can a big modern linear class a/b really be?" Everyone knows "you get what you pay for" but I suppose hope springs eternal...

 

I think Emotiva’s model is take the lowest end parts available in the Chinese supply chain and stamp them together.

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28 minutes ago, DancingSea said:

 

I love ❤️ you too ?

 

The OP has a budget. Just trying to encourage him in the new hobby. I have a very Audiophile buddy who is very particular and he owns giant emotiva monoblocks which he loves. They are part of a $20K+ system. 

 

We don’t want to grouch the OP away, now do we ??

 

Pushing junk isn’t the way either.

[GUTB]

Planars and electrostats are nowhere to be seen at audio shows which are dominated by box speakers. Why is that?

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8 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

they want to impress people like you

 

Why can’t they impress audiophiles with Magnepans?

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18 minutes ago, mav52 said:

There you go again, writing crap without facts.   nowhere to be seen

FYI 2018 Axpona, Magnepan room 506 and Martin Logan ( Prosperity  room, room 404 and 670 .    Why don't you research before you spout off on so many false facts.  Why is that ?

 

There were what, 160 rooms at AXPONA and almost all of them featured box speakers. Why is it that you’re much more likely to see a YG, Magico, Wilson or Focal at these shows?

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2 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

it appears that the GUTBot is based on a very limited AI system with no research or analysis capabilities

 

What was your favorite room at AXPONA? Did you hear any Magnepans there?

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14 minutes ago, mav52 said:

It doesn't matter how many rooms   What you said ' nowhere to be seen "  which means you are wrong  

 

 

 

I’m neurotypical. Less than 1% of the show had those speakers so nowhere is a suitable hyperbole.

[GUTB]

It’s interesting how the online low end seems to generally fall towards this pole of gravity dominated by Magnepans and class-D.

[GUTB]

2 hours ago, gmgraves said:

Since when are six thousand dollar and up speakers "the low end"? Just because they sell two models (3 if you count the entry, mail-order only MMG) that are under $2K, doesn't make them "low-end" in performance. For instance, the MG -.7, at $1500, sounds better  (and by that I mean they out-perform) than any stand mounted mini-monitor, regardless of price and that includes the wildly over-priced Wilson Duette II at almost $20 grand as well as other speakers of that type like the Raidho D-1.1 ($37K) and any of the gorgeous Sonus Faber stand mounts I've ever heard. You are a price snob, my friend, and it shows!

 

I won't comment on the Class-D amplification. I've only heard two at any great length. One is the 50 WPC NAD 5070, and the 150 WPC (8Ω) Behringer NU1000. Neither are what I would call high-end, but both do some things superbly well. I wouldn't hesitate to employ the Behringer as a sub-woofer amplifier, the bass is that good, The NAD sounds pretty nice, but it doesn't image very well in that it has a very shallow, and not too wide soundstage. It would be fine for a vacation cottage system or an office system, though but it only has digital inputs. 

 

When we look at the $20k and up spectrum you’ll see Wilsons, TADs, Magicos, etc. What they all have in common: large super-heavy box speakers. The low-end is, let’s say, less than $2k. These are dominated by lightweight box speakers. But you’ll find online discussions like here in CA the discussion seems to gravitate towards Magnepans. Not the legendary Quads, not the more expensive MLs or the other more boutique panel speaker makers — Magnepans. The discussion usually looks like this: "the .7 is great," "yeah the 1.7 is the best," "Magnepans beat $20k speakers," etc and so on. 

 

No one ever says: "the smaller Magnepans have great air and imaging but have inferior soundstages and lack sonic weight, KEF R-series are much better in those areas".

[GUTB]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

I keep telling you guys, it is a very limited bot - not much AI is running that thing

 

Why do you want people to have inferior music experiences?