AB versus D?
I have not yet found a reliable review of one of those tiny class D Chinese amplifiers. By that I mean a sounds like review by at least an apprentice golden ear. But I have found a Stereophile review of a Chinese "hi end" amp made by Eversolo who have made a few those small Class D amps. The model in question is the Eversolo AMP-F10.
Stereophile did a relatively positive review in the classic "it sounds like" style.
I want to be clear that sounds like style only works to sort devices that are otherwise noted as at least OK. I have seen so many likes of less than OK devices to rely only on that.
The cool thing here is that when the designers at EVERSOLO wanted to take a kick at the high end they went class A/B. It is in every way a classic big iron linear power supply to an analog transistor output. They didn't try to do it Class D. So they think in their own minds A/B is better? I will link the review below as it has some cool tidbits like what music they listen to in Shenzen China.
In typical fashion they overclaim the power. The lead in on the website says 950 Watts, but it really is 200 Watts per channel at 8 Ohms. The higher number is when it is bridged into mono into 4 ohms. It is not an inexpensive device.
For all that it did fine. It was being compared to a Benchmark AHB2 which is a good one. Generally the AHB2 was better in detail and clarity while in some tracks the Chinese beast showed a heavier bass. So it was good, but not as good as.....
I had seen a good review of an ARC Class D amp, but it had a linear power supply, and the Class D "module" was built of discrete components by ARC. That's the hard way.
The fun part here was, as I said, that Eversolo thought they had to do a high end amp old school.
As a bit of spice the Audio Science Review site has comments on this particular model as being not very reliable.
A century ago, pioneering psychiatrist Carl Jung had a wild encounter with the power of sound. "In a village on the way from Lake Albert to