Why Are Audiophiles Treating New School Class D Amps Like EV Cars?

Electric cars are a quantum leap forward in automotive design. Even mid-priced battery powered or EV cars are simply faster than nearly every uber-exotic car on the market. A new Rivian pickup truck (2.5 seconds) with the quad motor can actually win in a 0 to 60 race with a Lamborghini Gallardo (3.4 to 3.7 seconds). Let that sink in for a minute in terms of how we think of what a fast car is in today’s marketplace. EV cars also create no exhaust which helps climate change via no real carbon emissions (let’s not talk about the battery after the car is done as that’s another issue, not that traditional internal combustion engine cars have plenty of toxic elements when they go to the junk heap). EV cars can look a little off beat, especially in the early days but they’ve gotten more approachable in the past few years in terms of aesthetics. Thanks to U.S. government subsidies of $7,500 per car, EVs lease extremely well today but that’s not where the real value is. 

If you are willing to pick up a used electric car from a short term lease, you might be shocked to see the value lost in a practically new car. Note, that is a car that you can drive on the 405 Freeway (or your version of that hell on Earth) and bypass traffic, as a solo driver in the HOV lane. That alone makes an EV worth the money for many car buyers. $68 from Amazon gets people like me who refuse to spend a penny with unelected “King Elon” on anything but it will allow you to use Tesla’s admittedly superior network of fast chargers in the event that you are going on a long trip and need some more battery life while wolfing down some Moon’s Over My Hammi at a road trip stop at Denny’s. 

Why I Didn’t Buy an EV When I Was First Told To …

Two years ago, my buddy who is the fleet manager at the Mercedes dealer in Santa Monica enthusiastically suggested that I buy an EV version of the biggest Mercedes SUV. He told me on a Friday when my car was in the shop potentially needing over $10,000 in repairs, that I had until Sunday to take advantage of an insane deal to get a $115,000 car for about $900 per month on a 24 month lease. With two kids, a dog and the frequent need to have my golf clubs in the trunk – my need for a big SUV is real but I had objections including the increase from $0 payment to $900. Another objection is that I don’t normally drive all that much as my current big Mercedes AMG SUV is 12-plus years old now but with a mere 83,000 miles on it. I simply don’t drive anywhere which doesn’t make the lease make much sense versus buying a car. I had objections about getting a charger at home which proved to be pretty small objections as we have one installed now and the LADWP paid for the installation eventually. There were other concerns about traveling long distances and charging via Mercedes network but when I visited Volvo to shop for one of their plug-in hybrids, the very low pressure salesman asked an excellent question. “Jerry, how many trips do you realistically make that are longer than 35 miles?” This is the electric range of said hybrid Volvo S90. He got me thinking and the reality is… few, if any, of my trips are longer than 35 miles and if they are – the gas kicks in and you just keep driving. My objections weren’t standing up to the factual realities of the situation. 

At the time back in 2023, I couldn’t pop for the car. There was just too much change needed in my headspace in too short of a period but a seed was planted. I bucked up for the $10,000 repair which then led to a $13,000 one next thus I would have been far better off with Mr. Marcus’ advice but I just wasn’t there yet. I wasn’t ready to the leap, even if it was forward.

Roll the tape forward to January of 2025 when only a week into the month, the Palisades Fire started a mere 2,000 yards from our home (aka: the FutureAudiophile.com headquarters). We are the one out of 10 who’s house didn’t burn down of the 4,400 total homes in Pacific Palisades, however my wife’s nearly paid off Mercedes SUV (we had $3,700 left and we had the pink slip) with 51,000 miles was left out during the fire with the roof inadvertently cracked. I had minutes to escape and I just didn’t see this detail as I had other more, life threatening issues to deal with at that moment. With 90 MPH winds in a fire storm, let’s just say my wife’s car wasn’t cleanable and after a somewhat Karen-esque call to a Manager at USAA, the car was thankfully totaled. 

Putting a fork in my wife’s SUV put me in the business of researching and buying her a new car. Kevin Voecks, the former face of Revel Loudspeakers, is an EV enthusiast and he suggested that I look at the used market. Holy crap! That 2023 Mercedes EQS was back from its 24 month lease and being sold on the lot for under $50,000. And we bought one. 15,400 miles, four brand new tires, 0-60 in under 4 seconds, three years of factory warranty and stickers to get you in the HOV lane for $625 per month for a few years. This is an insane deal when you consider that the car was close to $120,000 new and that in reality, it was pretty much new now. My objections of the past were emotional and not fully rational as I just needed some time to get over my mindset about what a car is and how it works and/or what you should pay for it.

Do We Bring the Same Irrational Objections to these New School Class D Amps?

Early class D amps (read about how they are changing the hobby here) were called “digital amps” which is a misnomer in that they are really semiconductor-based “switching amps” but it is easy to understand why people would call these amps digital. These early amps had their advantages but audiophile sound was not one of them. They often used a B&O ICE chip which implies an icy-cold sound which isn’t really fair, but fully understandable. These amps are still to this day small, light, powerful, used very little power and ran cool as a cucumber. They changed the world of audiophile subwoofers when Bob Carver put a switching class D amp into a Sunfire True Subwoofer. Distributed audio systems could do more channels of in-wall speakers in ways that made more sense than ever. AV receivers could offer more power without more expense. Class D amps changed the consumer electronics world for the better but audiophiles weren’t really into them.

Looking at Today’s Incredible Class D Audiophile Power Amps …

Roll the tape forward to today and there is a whole new group of class D amps that have now changed the audiophile market. If you are a frequent reader of FutureAudiophile.com, you will know that these GaN (learn more here), Hypex or Pascal chipped amps are also game changing but this time for audiophiles – not the custom installation (CI) world. Today’s modern class D amps have nearly all of the aforementioned benefits including very light weight, low energy use, nearly no heat generated, less metalwork for heat synchs as they are not really needed anymore. The cost is pretty low too relative to other, more exotic and traditional audiophile power amps. The issue for most audiophiles isn’t the feature sets or even performance as much as it is such a radically different way of looking at an audiophile amplifier. They call this, the most glowing sense of the term, “disruptive” in Silicon Valley. 

We’ve done the Pepsi Challenge at my house with some of the best class D amps versus both tube and class A power amps and the delta in performance is respectfully narrow. While I use an energy pig, hot AF Pass Labs XA-25 (read the review) in my rack and deal with those issues to get the Nth percentage of performance from said class A amp versus the newer amps. The Pass amp sounds a little better overall and I like owning an amp from my friend, Nelson, which counts in my book. The Pass Labs class A amp sounds little bit more resolved, open and maybe even a touch warm but barely, when comparing it to ADG, Orchard and other class D amps that have made it into my system in recent months. Put your hand on my Pass Labs class A XA-25 amp in my rack and it gets hot and that’s no surprise. The amp draws literally all power from the wall and “cooks it down” (for lack of a better, more engineering-driven term) to a pretty low amount of power output which is how class A amps work by design. Class D amps offer a more modern way of getting almost all of the performance without the issues and grief.

Why Are Audiophiles Caught Up on Class D Amps?

Respectfully, change is hard for many traditional audiophiles. Let’s rephrase, change for some older audiophiles is so painful that they can’t stand it and often want to revive old/dead technologies mainly out of fear. The audiophile elders at the establishment print magazines cling to the past (vinyl, tubes, weird speakers) and promote these technology as high definition and/or highly relevant. I guess some people want to read reviews that delve into past technologies and we deliver there when we can but we are future audiophile and even the most jaded audiophile can see that class D amps are the future even if they resist them. For the love of God, I resisted an EV in 2023 as there were good reasons. Change takes a little while sometimes and I bet that people will come around to these beyond exciting technologies as they evolve. Let’s be frank, I wasn’t ever going to buy one of those early generations of Prius or Honda EV/hybrids that look like they were designed for somebody who never changes the radio station from NPR. Sorry, I need more sex appeal from my cars from that, and I am not alone. Audiophiles feel the same way about their electronics and I fall into that camp too. I want my class D amp to look like Cello or Vinnie Rossi or D’Agostino or Pass Labs. I just don’t want to deal with the cost and issues that come with a more traditional audiophile rack and I’ve not yet found that product but trust me, I am looking.  

Improving the Look and Form Factor of Today’s Class D Amps 

Today’s class D amps represent some of the most incredible values in the audiophile space for those who don’t have hang-ups about the way the amps look. Argent Pur (read my review of their more snazzy looking GaN amp), an audiophile company known for their expensive silver audiophile cables, has made a much more pretty looking audiophile power amp (mono and stereo) but they are still a non-standard form factor. AMPED America’s AMP 2400 amp (read the review) uses the Pascal chip set and at $5,000 is a full-width component but it lacks that Vinnie Rossi level finish or a D’Agostino or Pass Labs gauge. Orchard Audio’s amps (read Mike Prager’s review of their top of the line $4,995 monoblocks) are a favorite with FutureAudiophile.com readers and their founder is finding ways to make his products have more physical appeal just as the car companies are making EVs that look like real cars. Cars that you want to own. Companies like Buckeye Amps (read a review of their NCx500) and Orchard are hyper focused on value and our core reader needs this as he or she grows their system. This value proposition is unlikely to change in the coming years but the designs will get more and more visually appealing. That trend has already started which has warmed more people up to making the emotional change over.

While this concept has zero to do with the sound of my system, I don’t love investing in audiophile components that are not full rack width. For me they just don’t feel like they are as serious of an audiophile component while looking somewhat silly in my professional audio Middle Atlantic rack. They need custom faceplates that cost a few hundreds of dollars each which is an annoying extra expense but just a small issue. Expect more and more companies to make full-sized class D audiophile amps in the coming months and years. Do they need to put lead bricks in them to make them “audiophile heavy”? That feels like it would be a bad idea but making an amp that looks like it is high end audio is a key part of winning over audiophiles to a new way of thinking about things. Just like plating of your food impacts your reaction to the dish, the look of your audiophile electronics (or your EV for that matter) is important. The good news is that it is improving as these, often new companies, develop with more and more evolved designs.

Final Thoughts on Class D Audiophile Amps …

Nearly every reviewer on staff has asked for a class D designed amp at one point or another in recent years and I understand why. Respectfully, reviewing amps can be hard to do in that the best amps don’t have a sound per se. So what do you talk about if the amp is neutral? There are design elements but what do you say about the downside? Heat? Weight? It is often the same few objections repeated over and over again and for good reasons. 

Today’s class D amps tell a far more interesting editorial story. They bring a whole new narrative to one’s audiophile system. For many of us, the idea that a $5,000 amp with bleeding-edge new technology is somehow better than a $20,000 amp with a vintage technology, is hard to digest in ways that that guy in the Gallardo feels when the Rivian blows him off the road in an non-exotic electric truck. 

Class D amps aren’t for every audiophile but every audiophile should know all about them. For younger audiophiles coming up in the hobby, the sound that you can get without the historical design bullshit, is going to be very compelling. 

On the uber high end, don’t be surprised when the big boys soon start looking at ways to make new school class D amps for the big-dollar audiophile electronics companies. Jeff Rowland dabbled in a Pascal chip based amp for about $30,000 but it is unclear if that is still a product that is being made or sold today. America’s current president’s purely absurd, mind-numbingly ignorant tariffs don’t impact the prior administration’s efforts to build not one but seven “gigabit factories” to make semiconductors in the United States. Not solely relying on Taiwan for semiconductors is a brilliant strategy if one really wanted to Make America Great Again. If traditional amps were already more expensive and loaded with downsides, perhaps the self-inflicted economic wound forced upon us by the current administration might force change adverse audiophile companies to look to soon-to-be American made semiconductors for their amps. There has to be some upside to the profound stupidity of a global trade war that extends beyond new ocean front real estate being available for Americans to buy in Greenland, right? 

We all will come around to new technology on our own personal timeline. As I type, I got a notice to check in for my flight tomorrow to go to the AXPONA show in Chicago. For audiophiles of all levels, I suggest that you take a quick listen to what these exciting, new companies are doing with very cool new technology as it has changed the world of audiophile amplifiers very much for the better. Will you be trading in your CH Precision monoblocks for a pair of $2,600 Orchard Audio amps? No, you will not but even if you already own crazy high-end audiophile amps, it is part of the fun of the hobby to see how these new technologies are pushing audiophile boundaries. The audiophile hobby isn’t good with accepting change but friends, change is here in the amplifier category and we should all be at least aware of it. 

What amps are you rocking these days? Have you had a chance to hear any of the new class D amps? What technologies? What brands? What did you think? Would you buy one? What would a company need to do to convert you to a class D amp? Share with us your thoughts on the matter. We will approve your comments ASAP below in this article.