Should I buy a Class A Amp.

I Thank all of you for your Responses. I should tell you that I have Eminent 8B Speakers. 83db @ 8 Ohmns. 

.........Don.

Mitch2  +1   Also, take into account the operating costs and add-ons. With listening every evening, the Class A design costs me an additional $20/month - not including the AC in the summer to compensate for the heat. Chances are good that different cabling will be needed to tweak system synergy with a different amp. Later, there are always visits to the repair tech. But, yes I do enjoy my Class A very much.

I've had my Levinson 20.6's for almost 25 years and would never even consider selling. Have heard a lot of other amplifiers but none of them would make me retire the 20.6's. So I would be the last to tell you to steer away from Class A amps. 

However, older amplifiers can cost a lot of money to service. Caps, diodes, trim pots and transistors can go bad after 20 plus years and it's not uncommon to get estimates in the $1000 to $2500 range to diagnose and repair vintage Krell, Levinson, Threshold, etc. 

Is Class A the best design? Look at it this way: no preamplifier designer would ever build anything other than Class A. The only reason that power amplifiers aren't all Class A is because the dollar to watt ratio is too high and the maximum power is usually limited to around 100 wpc. 

Listen for yourself.

My personal opinion - if you like silky mellifluous middles, do it. And get some Harbeths while you’re at it. :-)

If you like an analytical, sharper delivery - don’t. And IMHO the new Hypex modules beat everything else when it comes to resolving details - finetune it to your preference with speakers. Done.

Is Class A the best design? Look at it this way: no preamplifier designer would ever build anything other than Class A.

This statement says it all, if a preamp was a/b it wouldn’t sound very good, all decent preamps are class A.

It’s the same for Class A amps even more so, but you have to cop the negatives, heat, powersupply ability, size, weight, and power consumption.
All these negatives have nothing to do with poor sound quality, if fact it’s the opposite, Class A done "right" is superior to any a/b, b, d, h etc etc

Cheers George