I am surprised no one has marketed 2, 3, 5, 7 channel class d home theater amplifiers at a cut rate price. I am sure someone can do a 5x200 that weighs 25lbs 4 ohm stable with some quiet fans and less obtrusive control lighting and pleasing aesthetics for $500 or less... That would put companies like emo and outlaw on the street for sure, unless one of them is first to the party of course... I honestly have no problem with my a/b's and like them a lot, I own some pro amps and they are what they are, much smaller and much more power, BUT are they safe for my tweeters, will they catch my house on fire when ran for 2 weeks without getting shut off, will they last a long time, will they reproduce all of my content 20-20K, will they sound terrible at low levels, ect, ect, ect? There has to be a reason these companies aren't jumping on it, Pioneer is supposedly shying away from their class d stuff in home audio products too, and I didn't mind the d3 stuff, my father in law has a 1222k and I like hat avr a lot.. I know most amps have the same sound if they don't add or take away anything obviously, BUT I tend to like how the class t stuff sounds, my tp60 is an amazing sounding amplifier, I compare it to others and at lower volumes where a ton of power isn't needed that amp makes anything i plug into it sing... I like the tripath stuff, why not some more powerfull trpath stuff, looks even cheaper than class d...
here's a nip from an article I found...
A
igital Switching Amplifiers (commonly known as Class-D) have been around for years. Nevertheless, it is nearly impossible to engineer a conventional Class-D amplifier that handles the full requirement, 20-20,000Hz, for full-bandwidth music reproduction. A Class-D amplifier works by utilizing a high-frequency sawtooth waveform to modulate the music signal (to learn more about how Class-D amplifier works, click here).
The constant presence of the sawtooth waveform, which is very high in frequency spectrum and its inevitable frequency jittering, can mask or corrupt low-level music signal. The output filter designed to filter out noise and overtones caused by the sawtooth waveform adds a 180 degree phase shift to Class-D output stage, causing possible instability and adding distortion due to its own inherent non-linearities.
Additionally, the output filter presents frequency-variant output impedance that can interact with a speaker's complex impedance. Variants of Class-D amplifiers with the addition of Digital Signal Processor claim to improve music reproductions. However, because of their lack of close-loop design, especially from the speaker's terminals, spurious interaction between the speaker's complex impedance and back-EMF with the amplifier's resonant output filter can result in harsh sound reproduction. The fundamental flaws of conventional Class-D amplifiers remain unresolved
