When it comes to any brand or technology its best to use your own ears rather then taking what others say as the Gospel..
I'd absolutely agree with that, provided we're discussing products of equal technical merit one way or the other. Since that's the furthest thing from this case, allow me to add a new twist to that old adage. When a design is critically flawed by its very nature or implementation, it doesn't quite get to the trust your ears stage, in my view.
I stress this because older technologies have had decades of refinement and optimization, there are no new ideas and no new mistakes to make, only old ones to repeat. The odds of anything completely technologically unsound ever hitting the market largely favor the consumer as a result. Not forgetting to mention, they are extremely simple in comparison to begin with, one look and you can see what's what and that's all there is to it. Then it easily comes down to trusting your ears without having to worry much about what's inside.
The "basic" theory is not at all new for class D, but it wasn't practical for full range high end audio for barely a decade now. There are all kinds of ways of going about achieving the basic theory of it, some far more refined than others, but even with a completely perfected design on paper there's still every opportunity to fail completely by way of implemention, every step along the way. This is no joke. Realize that the kinds of challenges class d designers face don't even exist with conventional topologies.
A few very competent engineers have proven true high quality audio from class d is now achievable, their efforts opened up a market, for which there's now a demand. Any junk pushed onto the market will sell. People know that all they need to get sales, is any piece of junk on the market, and an ignorant, uninformed consumer. You are their mark, the reviewers and internet their tools.
Also consider that a bad class d amplifier can be considered euphonic in many ways for any number of reasons, and that your ears can readily mislead you. If you think your ears are unfallible you'll be the first to fall. You have to live with it a long while before the honeymoon is over and you can really appreciate it for what it truly is, one way or the other. Enjoyed your Nuforce for that 1 month trial period? Talk to me six months or a year from now.. noo, it's not because you need a new power cable like they tell you, it's just because it sucks, from the ground up. If it can't interface well with standard gear, and can only be listened to on their own pre amp.... sucks all the more.... what's the next excuse.
This is best case scenario where we first assume the amps are sufficiently well designed to hold themselves together under typical circumstances, hopefully also worst case circumstances, not always the case either. There are several examples of people who fell for marketing and simply trusted their ears, unaware of incompetent design, that were left to wonder before very long why their $30 000 speakers went up in smoke. "But I dropped 5g's on it, it has to be good" Nope. Sure, they got their amps repaired or replaced for free, sorry 'bout those speakers, glad your house didn't burn, family ok? Version 39345.ak8yxz won't have that issue, thanks for testing it for us, thanks for trusting your ears, look, an award.
Also consider that while the internet has made it "easy" for the consumer to become "informed" compared to before, it has also made it easy for the con artists to be the ones informing them, don't think for a second it doesn't happen all the time.
So the very best thing you can do is to make the most informed decisions possible, and that means, actually get educated on the matter as much as possible, which is not easy to do either because it requires a lot of dedication even if you do have a technical background. Typically this works in their favor over yours. Know that the industry as a whole doesn't protect you, you've seen that here with the award winning, FCC approved EMI inferno known as Nuforce. Believe that they are not alone in what they do. I've only used them as an example because they were brought up already, and a prime example they are! There are many others, some even worse, believe it or not. As I said before, there are the few very rare exceptions to the rule, learn who they are and follow their teachings, which don't necessarily come by way of marketing or reviews.
If you choose not to educate yourself you choose to be vulnerable. You'll be lucky to know someone that is informed and willing to tell you the truth about things, allowing you to place products of ~equal merit on the table, if any exist at all, so you can simply trust your ears. Yeah, use your ears, but use your brain first.
Inspiribomb, I'm glad I could help. I see you have some new equipment in your collection now. How do you like them so far? Like I said, never heard them myself. :arrow:
