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I beg to differ...

I heard the commercial Evo2 amp on an excellent setup. I played with the 2x20W demo kit from Tripath (including battery powered). I had the opportunity to listen to many examples of these amps at Tripath demo room (which is quite impressive!). I also talked with a person from Tripath, who's familiar with what those chips do. It confirmed to me what I was hearing.
I'll admit that the "artifacts" are at very low level, but they're there. You just can't hide what's there!
As for analog amps, some do have considerable noise, but it's not the noise LEVEL that bothers me. I can listen to an amp with considerable hum and enjoy every minute of it (but it won't be my first choice either...)
What really bothers me is what the digital amps do to TONE when playing at low levels. This is a different kind of distortion, and to my ears worse than IM (i.e., mixing products). Maybe this is a subjective statement. I listen to extremely low level nuances. For me, harmonic structure is what makes the music "complete" and realistic, and those natural harmonics are at levels close to the noise floor.
My ear and brain can tell hum from harmonics but have a tough time coping with pseudo-random noise that's not "white noise" in nature.
There are many so-called "high-end" analog amps which I can't live with, because they come across too "clinical" or too euphonic. That's not music for me.
Can I live with an Evo or the Panasonic? Probably so, but neither would be my first choice!


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