Steven,
I'm certainly no audio engineer nor claim to know much about this stuff in general, compared to many who post here. Take my opinions as just that; one guy's opinion.
I really wanted to like both the Hypex and Ice. I was looking to make a move to one or the other. Neither worked for me, using many different speakers including; Legacy Audio Focus, Infinity Ren 90, Martin Logan electrostats, and Sanders 'stats. In all cases they were flat and lifeless, and collapsed soundstage. I expected when we replaced the switch-mode amps with one of my big class A or AB amps that I would be the only one who really heard the differences. But that was not the case. Each and every time, replacing the switch-mode for a Bryston 4bst or Krell KSA80b, the differences were not subtle. Nor was I alone in my assessment.
Why the difference? Good question. There are many amps that look great on paper, that for whatever the reason, cannot deliver on their spec promises. My best guess is two-fold:
First is that they don't deal well with speaker reactance. Impedance and phase swings inherent in the speaker design due to crossover components and driver limitations can tax many amps. I've settled on amps that tend to present themselves as true voltage sources with huge (really huge) power supplies. This seems to deal with speaker load reactance well.
Second thoughts, are that the filter that remove the carrier frequency of the switch-mode amps, end up crushing many of the useable harmonics in the upper end. It's the nature of switch-mode. As things move forward, I assume they will choose their carrier frequencies higher and higher, as well as figure out better filters that are more exacting and specific. We still cannot measure by machine (or at least we don't know WHAT to measure), all that the human hears/decodes and reassembles as music in our brains. It's analogus to an old Star Trek episode. Kirk and crew were captured by aliens that could read their minds. The aliens could also conjure anything the crew could think of. The aliens served the kidnapped party a huge Roman feast, with every food imaginable. Everything was beautiful and perfect in every way. Except...the aliens did not know what these things were supposed to taste like. They assembled fruit, meat, veggies into perfect facsimiles, but they could not re-create the taste. They did not have the tools or database to truly assemble things the way they were supposed to be.
That said, I was very impressed with Spectron. In fairness though, the Spectrons were fronted by elec xovers, and they were not taxed with running full range, with big reactive swings at the amp outputs. 3 huge amps driving pretty efficient speakers, probably helped a great deal. But as it sits, they are the only switch-mode that really sounded great. I also have to confess, that I haven't been back to replace the Spectrons with other non switch-mode amps, to compare. That will be another interesting, educational evening to come!
Yes, I was disappointed in class D as a whole. But different people expect different things from their system. Plus, there are so many variables in systems that I cannot say 'class D is inferior', or the like. In some applications that I haven't heard, they may well be great. Systems that tend to be a bit forward in the highs for whatever reason, may be tamed by class D. Look at all the guys with horn speakers using tripath. I assume that is why they mate so well. Many horns tend to be too hot up top in the first place (I'm a horn lover by the way, and have been meaning to try a Hlly 90 on my Voice of Lascala).
Please follow up with your impressions of your new amp. With luck, your system synergy will be great, and you will find nothing lacking!:thmbsp: