The v3 monoblocks are better thanks to feedback on the ASR on the earlier Fosi audio v3 stereo amp. I'm about to order the fosi za3 instead which doesn't measure as good as the v3 monoblocks, but has balanced inputs. If it turns out to be good i will buy one more and biwire my polk RtiA9 floorstanders. I already have constructed a speaker switch which can switch between two different amps and two different pairs of speakers. The ZA3 will allow me to put the amps just next to the speaker and I can run a long balanced cable from my DAC to the amps. I have two DACs with balanced output so this amp will allow me to utilize them.
Class D is still not as good in 2024?
- Thread starter Analogous
- Start date
rwnano
Well-Known Member
V3 monoblock also has balanced inputs XLR?
Your DAC s must be expensive? I use topping d10s DAC...
It does have, but
1. It is not available online in any store in India
2. It is few dollars more and I can't justify that cost for few extra sinad value, which my ears will anyway not able to hear it. To biamp, i will require 4 of the monoblocks. With za3 I require just two which will cost me just Rs 27k.
The topping D10s is a good dac. I have it's balanced output equivalent D10b which is connected to my 20 band graphic equalizer, the output of which goes to a headphone amp feeding my HD650 headphone. The topping D10b drove me nuts making it work with mpd on my macbook and macmini. Ultimately I found that to be two cases of shoddy programming. One shoddy programming by Apple programmers and a shoddy programming by the Topping team which has an extra trailing blank space in the device name. I use mpd for all my music playback and this is the entry I had to make for mpd to make it work with D10b. The same issue is there for D10s, but it works on Linux where the ALSA driver ignores leading and trailing blank space in the ALSA hardware device name
I found this issue thanks to this post
Configuring mpd for bit-perfect playback on the Mac
Configuring mpd for bit-perfect playback on the Mac
hydrogenaud.io
If you are interested here is the linux code (Linus Torwards kernel tree) which uses the usb_audio_make_shortname() function to create a device name without the space. The call to strim() function at line 527 in the source code fixes this issue.
linux/sound/usb/card.c at master · torvalds/linux
Linux kernel source tree. Contribute to torvalds/linux development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
There are many such cases with real shady programming by apple. e.g. When you use samba, you cannot have @ in the password.
e.g. the following line mounts my Music drive on my macbook pro and mac mini. It uses the user pi with password pipinopi to access the share.
The host on which the share is present, is separated by the @ sign. So in this case 192.168.2.101 is the IP address on which the samba share lies
My /etc/auto_smb at the moment is like this
My earlier password for the share was pi@@9435. so /etc/auto_smb was like this
apple devices treats @[email protected] as the IP on which the samba share lies (the string after the first @ symbol) and naturally fails because this is not a valid IP address
Linux does it perfectly. It parses the IP address from backwards and correctly identifies the IP address as 192.168.2.101 even if the password has a @ symbol.
Unbelievable to see such shoddy programming from a billion dollar company
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rwnano
Well-Known Member
V3 monoblocks will cost you 18 k per pair with the two 5amperes adaptor power supply. US friends can be asked
So, sometimes objective measurements and subjective opinions on a product can both be good.
Wonder how often this happens statistically and how we feel about it
rwnano
Well-Known Member
The problem with these youtube reviews is they tout the specs rated by the manufacturers as gospel. None of these amps actually can do the full rated power of the TPA3255 chip. They don't have a good thermal design. The whole thing is in a cramped space. Most of these amps will simply burn and get fried if you use the amp to deliver the full power. Safer option is to use 36volts power supply.
reignofchaos
Well-Known Member
Doesn't matter what power supply you use. It is still Class D.
Having tried many of these chinese amps, they are not a hifi solution. Anyone claiming these are the end all of hifi has ear wax. They are fine for the money but compared to a well designed, serious Class D amp like NAD master series, these are just junk.
Thank you. i am not considering chinese amps . i am planning to build an amp with hypex modules.
reignofchaos
Well-Known Member
My secondary system has a nad m10v2 with hypex ncore connected to dyns. Sounds fantastic!
I am using Belcanto ref600m monos with arc ls22 tube preamp sounds fluid balanced and mellowish
eastofthesun
Well-Known Member
Very good call, I have been using an entire mola mola setup for a few years now and they have the hypex ncore module and im very happy with it.
Informative post
What revision are the class d amps at now? I mean, you've got revisions a through z, and then usually you go AA through ZZ. I can talk to a fellow class A or high bias class AB owner.And we can speak intelligently to one another. You can't do that with the budget class D crowd because you don't know what revision you're listening to. Obviously, the so-called upper echelon has class A input stages, of course to deaden the nastiness of the class D. AXPONA going to have a lot of explaining to do. I can't wait to hear the snake oil class D amplifier talk there.
they are supposed to be well good
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greenhorn
Well-Known Member
Just wanted to post, yes, I can
I believe the time has come and went where Class D has become as good as their Class AB counterparts, if not surpassed them in the budget segment also which in 2025, I consider to be <1000$ or <1L. I won't go into higher priced options because there are quite a few manufacturers out there who have been building well regarded Class D amps in the high end segment for a very long time and Class D amps have also matured in the mid-fi segment with certain manufacturers switching even their top of the line models (such as Marantz and NAD) to run on Class D.
For some time now, the Blusound Powernode has been as good as Class AB amps of an equivalent price tag, provided you also factor in the cost of a streamer into the price of an AB amp while making the comparison. It goes for a safe approach with the sound where it may not win over the enthusiast but no aspect of its performance is a distant second to equivalent Class A/B amps. I've generally found it good enough to wring out a respectable performance from speakers <2L.
Now here is where i will introduce some controversy into the discussion - the goal posts have been shifted with the Marantz M1. I suspect its better than the Class A/B counterparts that Marantz offers in the same price range - it is a good step up from the likes of the PM6006 or the SR6013 receiver and goes toe to toe with Amps in the 1.5L price range. I've heard it with a variety of speakers including the B&W 705 S3 Signatures and the sound was simply seductive, notwithstanding that it was a completely untreated space as opposed to a dedicated listening room.
In Marantz's own words, to get a step up in performance, one'll have to opt for the Marantz Model 40N and above which is 3x the price of the M1. Considering that the M1 goes for as little as 84K, I believe we're suddenly wrangling with the question of whether Class D has indeed surpassed Class AB.
rwnano
Well-Known Member
What about comparing to fosi v3 dual monoblocks? The above mentioned amplifiers.
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