Should I buy a Class A Amp.


I would Love to buy a Class A Amp. I have a Sony Tan-80ES Amp right now and I have had it for 19 yrs. To me it sounds Great but I am curious about Class A Amps. Do they really sound better? I am looking at a Krell KSA 200 Amp right now for $2000.00. It is older then my Sony. Is this too much for such an old Amp? Would Love to hear members thoughts on this.  

Blessings, ..........Don.
donplatt
Class A amps are very quick and alive.  There is no substitute for a good Class A bias amp.  I have had both PassLabs and Krells.  Both are good, but you can't beat  a Krell.  I have two 600E's and they have never disappointed.
I have a pair of Cary SLM D7 monoblocks. Pure class A. I love them, so yes. Like all gear beauty is in the ear of the listener and tube choice makes a big difference. I prefer to adjust sound with tubes and a preamp that has tone controls and eq switches. Used the pair cost only 1000 and kicks ass compared to anything I've ever owned. Yep, they are around 30 years old and still kickin. Go for it, class A rules. :-)

Here is something to ponder: You can't buy them, but Audire made both class A and Class A/B amps with the same basic parts. The A/B was twice the power, 200 vs 100 wpc (Parlando and Otez). Their designer, Julius Siksnius, an honest to god rocket scientist for the Apollo moon rockets, also had an earlier amp, the Forte, which used either bipolar or later, just to prove a point, a choice of the above or MosFets. He never claimed either was better. I have one of each. They sound the same. I have an Otez and a Parlando.  They sound the same except on my best speakers, B&W 803's. On my Electrostatic's or older B&W's there is no difference. The 803's are my most efficient speakers, by far.

The difference seems to be that the efficient speakers need less power and the Class A has it, so it has an easier life, despite the heat. I know that makes no sense, but I am not an electrical engineer.

I like Pass designs, including Threshold, and Audio Research. Since Audio Research is available in older models, buy it if you can work on it for small repairs, like changing tubes (especially if you have a great A/C system) but get Threshold for total reliability if you are happy with transistors.

Routine bias tweaks are less important on Classe A , as far as longevity.

Tubes are good, but they age and you won't notice without something to compare them with. By then you have wasted a lot of time that could have been used to listen to great transistor amps that are much more reliable designs. 




Not all Class A amps sound good, but all of the best sounding amps I have owned have been Class A.

I still run Classe DR3 VHC (105 lbs each, put out about 800 watts into heat when idling, and will drive anything out there (mine used to drive Apogee Scintillas which dropped to 0.7 ohms at some frequencies).  I run a pair of them bridged and a single stereo version (running electrostats, which are good instruments to judge sound quality by) in different systems.

I also run a Belles A, but have gone to Class AB for summer use (older Rowland amp) which also sounds very good and won't heat you out of the room.
There's a downside of having a father who was an electronics engineer, building amps from age 12, and still designing and building them while training for four years as an electronics engineer....

Any amp, any class (a/ab/d) can be good or bad.

Electronic components are inherently non-linear over differing temperature/voltage/current/speaker load conditions, and thus all an engineer can do is compensate for these non-linearities by using all sorts of different techniques.

Class A's tend to be more linear because they reduce the number of non-linear variables in the equation. Friends of mine run 300Wpc Class A amps and frankly, they're probably the answer if you don't mind the heat and the power bill.

Personally, when it comes to amplification, I don't subscribe to "let your ears choose" unless you promise to never say "my amp is better than yours".

The technical purity of any amplifier can be measured. Perhaps start there, and then let your ears or wallet choose.