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Does the heat an amp puts out have any effect on the sound quality ?

Does  how hot an amp runs have any effect on sound quality ?
Or is this only a concern for the longevity of the amp? I have an old Harmon Kardon
amp that supposedly puts out 60 watts at 8 ohms and has 30 amps of current.
when purchasing I was comparing it to  an onkyo with 120 watts. They were driving
a pair of jbL monitors. It flat out smoked the onk. Probably twice the volume.
I decided On a minor upgrade down the road to a Yamaha as-500 at 85 watts.
Years later I got tired of the brightness of the Yamaha. Decided to hook up the Harmon
kardon just for kicks. Instantly the mains came back to life. Much cleaner an  better bass  maybe
a little more volume. Its almost like harmon Kardon put a wrong part in this amp. Making it sound much better than it should. My only concern is how hot it runs. It doesn't seem to effect anything even
at long listening periods. Should I be concerned at how hot it runs. It has given me no problems.
Any one have any opinions ?
jcb1957
jcb1957's avatar
jcb1957 OP
6 posts
 
Thank you all for your input !
       Keep listening J.
ebm
5,165 posts
 
It will not do that.
donjr
1,311 posts
 
So for the sake of Almarg's question of the model amp, we can use mine. I have a Accuphase E-600 Class A with Harbeth C7ES3 speakers. Overkill yes, but a path to upgrades for an integrated lover. I don't find the Accuphase to run overly hot. I believe class A running hot is a blanket statement pople throw out there for all class A amps.

almarg's avatar
almarg
8,673 posts
 
Don, the relevant specs on your equipment are:

Speaker impedance:  6 ohms nominal, described as "easy to drive."

Amplifier:

Rated Continuous Average Output Power (both channels operating simultaneously, 20 - 20,000 Hz):
150 W/ch 1-ohm load (1-ohm operation possible with music signals only)
120 W/ch 2-ohm load
60 W/ch 4-ohm load
30 W/ch 8-ohm load

Power Consumption:
160 watts idle
260 watts in accordance with IEC 60065
200 watts for rated output into 8 ohms

Maximum Dimensions:

Width 465 mm (18.31”)
Height 191 mm (7.52”)
Depth 428 mm (16.85”)

Weight:

24.7 kg (54.5 lbs) net

Consistent with what you have found, I would not expect an amp having size and weight as substantial as the E-600 and dissipating (consuming) roughly 200 watts to get particularly hot.  The same dissipation in a much smaller package would be a different story, though.

Regards,
-- Al
  
bombaywalla's avatar
bombaywalla
1,957 posts
 
well, for the sake of discussion then......

I've a vintage Yamaha CA-2010 integrated which has a switch on the front to toggle between Class-A & "Normal" (which is Yamaha speak for class-AB). in class-A it is also a 30W/ch into 8 ohms just like donjr's Accuphase E-600. in my particular case, the amp's heatsinks (in the middle of the amp) become really hot. In the manual i read that the quiescent bias for the output stage is stepped up to 300mA in class-A while it is just 25mA in class-AB. The amp has no forced cooling & it is vented on the top + bottom + back. I suppose that Yamaha intended to operate with this sort of heat dissipation....
Could it be possible that the Yamaha's heatsinks are much smaller than the E-600's hence the higher heat??
The dimensions of the amp are quite similar to the E-600 & it's just 8-9 lbs lighter.  
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