I don't have knowledge of these particular components, but the home made Class D amps I have heard have been dreadful. Powerful but hard, glassy sound.

My impression is that buying an ICE chip or similar is easy - making a good circuit to put it in is the tricky part.

It doesnt look like a good idea.

If you want cheap watts id go with a pro audio amp before attempting this

Like this

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Crown-XLS-202D-Power-Amplifier-103635520-i1145680.gc

Quote:
Like this

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Crown-XLS-202D-Power-Amplifier-103635520-i1145680.gc

Unbelievably good deal.

I've been playing with an XLS 802 and have growing affection for it.

These come with fans, which are audible...so if you are a hard driver, then I'd say to place the amp in a sonically unobtrusive place. For mine, Big Mike cut the fan leads and only once has the unit gotten hot and turned itself off...and that was while we were trying to torture it driving some lower ohmed Apogee speakers.

On everything else, it's been quiet and loyal.

*Subjective: I don't know if it broke me in, or vice versa, but after about 4 months, it seemed to change into something nicer sounding than when it started. However, I've used in different rooms and with different systems, so it may be that my impression is based on those changes rather than any evolution of the amp's sound.

Now, it's driving a pair of Klipsch La Scalas and they throw up a huge, open, airy sounstage and the dynamics are killer. I don't listen very loud - about 85 dB average level is feeling loudish to me, and the amp even makes that volume sound good because there is absolutely no dynamic challenge to the amp handling the dynamics of music and driving that speaker.

I'd definitely vote to gamble 250 bucks for a Crown.

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The Crown XLS 402D with its 50% more power can be had for $260. I don't know if I want to deal with the XLR inputs.

The connections are zero problem, I forgot if I got them seperate or if the amps came with adapters, but click/click and they are RCA receptive.

I've spent a lot of time talking with Jeff Rowland, who's taken Class D pretty well as far as it can go. He'll tell you that Class D has extremely high potential but that it's super sensitive to things like power supply (his units use power factor correction to convert AC to 270V DC), component isolation (he uses chassis carved out of billet aircraft aluminum) and those are just a couple of the problems associated with Class D design. Unshielded the Class D amp will throw off tremendous RFI that'll interfere with nearby CD players, interconnects, etc.

Extremely talented designers, like Jeff Rowland, have addressed and overcome these very serious issues, but it'll be tough for the average hobbiest. If you wanted to set one up in the trunk of your car, with a simple chassis and minimal additional shielding, but proper grounding, that might be doable, but making it the basis for a high rez home rig would be folly, I suspect.

Dave

I've a PS Audio Trio C100 Class D integrated and I'm very happy with it.

I don't know about building one's own though.

The Trio is a nice unit. Good choice.

I have always been impressed with both Rowland and Bel Canto amps as well.

I'm sure both Rowland and Bel Canto are very impressive; they are, however, way out of my price range.