As I sift through all the online reviews of the latest chip amps, one glaring similarity stands out. No one will admit the obvious. It's on the tips of their tongues and it's strategically encrypted in their glowing reviews, yet no one in the circles will step forward to profess. 

Like Bastian's reluctance to simply give the princess of Fantasia a new name... no professional reviewer can bring the words forward:

Given the correct source, digital chip amps simply mop the floor with everything else.

My 8 pound Panasonic consistently runs circles around amps priced two zeros higher, granted I'm not pushing planars. The difference is audible even on the cheapest of speakers.

Reviewers make a fool of themselves every time they state otherwise...pandering to the romantics.

If it sounds better, just come out and say it, stop dancing around the issue. We're all hear for the audio. If it sounds like 5 stars, give it 5 stars.

A $200 chip amp can sound better than a $2,000 or $20,000 amp. With the right setup, equivalently mixed CD audio surpasses LP audio over a set of tubes, with less fuss and even less outlay. It's 2012...it can be done.

 .

Just what is a digital chip amplifier anyways? Is it really digital?

I would think if one wants to adhere to the actual "digital" amplifier circuit which would theoretically convert ones and zeros into analog speaker voltages, then one would want something along the line of a power DAC.

Like what was pointed out in the Behringer Inuke thread. http://www.tactlab.com/Products/T2/T2.html

I'm sure the TacT can mop the floor rather well, but yer gonna pay for it...

Wish I could feel the same, life would be easy!

I'm glad your satisfied! But I sincerely doubt I ever could be with chip amplifiers.

I had some King Rex stuff here for a listen. While King Rex was very musical, its harmonic presentation bored me to tears. Its as simple as that. There is far more to audio then just measurements. For many things heard there are no measurements.

I do listen to CD mostly in a minimalist system. But would appear that you haven't been exposed to great LP setup's and I don't mean some 1-$2000, great setups can be costly of course so much so I had to design my own. But in the end LP's have been far more informative to my ears even vs some the $10,000 CDP's that I have heard or even my own highly modified CDP.  In some systems certainly CD vs LP may very well appear to be closer and of course resulting in the opinion that you have.

From my perspective you have only just scratched surface on what can be heard.

SET12 

I just get a kick out of how the reviewers pit their $10,000+ mono block powered  "reference" systems against the unsuspecting DUT. They praise the kiddo for knocking it out of the park in one breath, then down-play it in the next because of the price point or some unrelated screwball feature like, "the remote sucks."   Like a $1500 Pioneer SC could never hang ten with, or best a Krell or Butler on the same set of speakers...or a Tact T2 can't possibly sound just like the 3 times more expensive NAD M2, in the same system.

Come on....the truth is, I can power my La Scala's on a $30 Sansa Clip playing a good FLAC file, and run right up there with the "best" esoterics at realistic levels these days.

SET12:

Wish I could feel the same, life would be easy!

I'm glad your satisfied! But I sincerely doubt I ever could be with chip amplifiers.

I had some King Rex stuff here for a listen. While King Rex was very musical, its harmonic presentation bored me to tears. Its as simple as that. There is far more to audio then just measurements. For many things heard there are no measurements.

I do listen to CD mostly in a minimalist system. But would appear that you haven't been exposed to great LP setup's and I don't mean some 1-$2000, great setups can be costly of course so much so I had to design my own. But in the end LP's have been far more informative to my ears even vs some the $10,000 CDP's that I have heard or even my own highly modified CDP.  In some systems certainly CD vs LP may very well appear to be closer and of course resulting in the opinion that you have.

From my perspective you have only just scratched surface on what can be heard.

SET12 

 

 

 

 

Yup CD's are digital too.....but those LP's just keep on rollin out...

Quiet_Hollow:

We're all hear for the audio.

Shouldn't be too hard to come up with some objective tests using standard audio performance parameters.     I suspect that chip amplifiers really don't perform that well, but add audio artifacts that make the crap that passes for music these days sound better to the tone deaf fans.   

I have a chip amp, and with some cd's it sounds very good, with some other cd's it does seem to sound a bit "electronic" sounding and lacks what I would call weight. I dont know if this is a product of this particular amp, or this amp with my speakers. I do have a friend who had a bel canto chip amp after selling it, he couldn't put his finger on why he didn't like the sound.  Someone he spoke with, who is well regarded, in the higher end audio amp building circles, put a finger on it for him, he said " they have no soul ".  It just might be they are very accurate reproducers of digitized sound, which inturn sounds a little fake or unreal.  I know when I hear auto tune with peoples voices in my car, I find it hard to listen to because it removes what I think is one of the aspects that makes music interesting.,

juniper8:

what I think is one of the aspects that makes music interesting.,

Imperfection makes music very interesting to me.  If I hear a song that's perfect on the first listen, it's usually less satisfying (in the long run) compared to one that grows on me over time due to its weird arrangement, odd singing style, etc.  With a new album, I usually grab onto a handful of songs that are liked immediately.  As the months and years go on, the others creep up, becoming favorites.  Mileage varies among releases, but you get the idea.

Back to the opinion of chip amps having 'no soul'.  Bias might be getting in the way.  If the listener knows he's listening to a chip amp, it may cloud things.  Time for a blind test.

I'm not saying chips are better than all, but I think they have earned a place in audio, IMO.

Rivernuggets or anyone else who might be interested? if you are ever up in the twin cities area? Like many, I have tube amps, solid states and a chip amp.  I'll buy the lobsters you bring your ears

You are on to something, QH.  I rarely chime in on this because the audiophool community simply can't believe it.  In my case, I choose to believe my ears. 

The initital round of recievers didn't make it for two reasons, both based on "Joe Average HT"

1. Too light to be credible.

2. Too cheap to be credible.

What's worse, the audiophile community suffers both of those as well.  TBHY, I am pretty sure some of the issues reported occur in the listener's head due to a simple inability to accept the idea that one of these dang near free devices produces sound (MHO) equal to any SS amp at any price, and matched only by tubes. 

First pany I got I sold ALL my SS amps.  Kept my tubes but if I hadn't already had them I wouldn't have spent the money on them unless I just had excess cash and wanted one nostalgia purposes.  I collect kerosene lamps, too, and prefer them to electric lights. 

There remain more than enough areas where one can spend as much cash as one wants and hear significant differences...but amplification, at least for some of us, isn't one of them.

BTW, you have opened a KING SIZE can of worms... 

Hope you are hungry!

Dave

Juniper,

Maybe it's the ultra-low noise floor that might take a bit getting used to? There's no precursor when the sound is about to tear the listener a new ear hole. Just dead silence...even wide open with 20-30V on deck.The lower the room's ambient level, the more pronounced the contrast. 

 Another big difference being the amps that run exclusively on a digital signal (ie. no analog front end). It's those types that seem to have that luscious, creamy midrange sound. If it has RCA's (not SPDIF) going into it coming from a computer or CD player (no matter how fancy), all I've ever experienced was grit.