Plinius sa250 overheating

The SA250 does run very hot in class A. A scorching 160 degrees which is HOT HOT HOT!!! By comparison, even the Class A Krells run at a "tepid" 140 degrees.(That indeed HOT! to touch) I never ran my SA 250 ( MkI original version) in class A for more than a few hours at a time. But, I never experienced any problem with the amp shutting down. My room size is fairly large and opens into the rest of the house, so I think it had good ventilation. I dont know if your amps location and in what room size, ventilation ability, ect..is causing it to run hotter than would be expected, but you are apparently tripping the thermal safety devices designed to protect the amp( a good thing)... and keep it from baking in its case.

It may be that you could set a small quiet running fan behind the amp to help. FWIW, I rarley ran mine in class A, as I found most casual listening extremely good in AB.

Good luck.

Sounds like your amp is either under-designed for Class A operation ( not enough heat sink area ) and / or your installation lacks enough airflow to allow the natural convection of heat to flow away from the amp. If the amp hasn't got at least 12" of open space above it with nothing surrounding it on the sides, you are bound to have problems. You either need to address that situation and / or install some type of forced air system to help keep the amp cool enough to keep operating. Sean
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I've seen/heard the SA102 amp at a demo. It did indeed run hotter than any other "Class A" amp I've ever seen. I can hold my hand on a Pass Aleph amp for a few seconds. I'd never do that with the Plinius.
I'm going to guess they could use more heatsink area on those amps..........