Hi ,
I'm in the process of looking for a 2 channel amp to drive my Focal speakers. I'm looking for an amp that provides the best sound quality and clarity over all out power so I was originally looking at Class AB amps.
Most of them seem rather large and I want to install the amp in a tight space.
Most of the small amps are Class D.
First of all, are these newer ,small class D full range amps delivering in terms of sound quality compared to the traditional Class AB amps?
Second is it a good idea to get an amp that has much more RMS power than is necessary so the amp will run cooler and with less distortion,rather than getting a less powerful amp that has to run full out to drive your speakers with the proper amount of power. Or does it even make a difference?
The one small Class AB I was looking at is the Zapco ST2,but thats the only small Class AB I could find.
My speakers are rated at 70W RMS nominal and the ST2 is rated at 50W RMS nominal.
Thanks

 

many new full range class D are amazing, and you won't be able to tell the difference. they have come a long way from when they were first used for full range.

not only are they smaller than class AB, but they are much more efficient, don't get as hot because of it, and put out more power most of the time.

if you have a choice, definitely go with the more powerful amp. more power will not hurt the speakers if setup properly.
the less you have to crank that sensitivity/gain control, the better your noise floor is going to be.

if you have 70watt speakers, i'd be looking at 100watt RMS/channel Class D, Full range amps.

check out JL's HD lineup, Alpine PDX lineup,
and my new favourite Zed Audio's Leviathan and Kronos.

 

Thanks

 

Zed Audio Leviathan

 

Are those new Arc amps that everyones jizzing about class d as well?

 

Arc has 2 lines of small amps, the bigger ones are class D the smallest ones, the arc mini's are class GH. I wouldn't concern myself with SQ of AB over D.

There a few class AB small amps though, they are usually cheeper to because A is so cheep to make.

Soundstream Stealth
Sony xm-4s
Massive audio NX2

I would personally go with a 4 channel and bridge it though. The 4 channel is just much more flexible.

 

The KS series? They are class D and pretty small, have decent power and sound good and there pretty reasonably priced. If your referring to the SE series they are AB and pretty expensive.

Also if you do look at leviathens make sure you get a NEW one because up until a few months ago they had some issues with bad parts that were blowing peoples speakers on turn on.

 

Can you clarify "flexible".
Do you mean for setting up and tuning or for adding on to your system later?
It seems that if you compare two amps within the same line the feature set is the same whether it's a 4 or 2 channel.

 

It's more flexible because it can function as a high power 2 channel or as a 3 or 4 channel

 

I have never even owned a class D amp, always have run AB. I run 3 of them in my current setup for a total of 10 channels, although 4 of them are bridged to two so technically 6 channels.