Why do I like Class AB better than Class A?

My prior amp, a Forte 4a was class "A" and sounded best only if left on 24/7. It took a few hours to sound decent, and to really shine took at least 24 hours..

It was only 50 watts a side, but it was like a little room heater.
My current amp, much bigger Bryston 4B-SST2 produces half the heat in a mass twice as big. (with six times the wattage) and I leave that on 24/7 too.

Elizabeth,

Your PURE Class A Forte 4A was biased at 800 mA per node - resulting in an astonishing 9 watts in Pure class A into a 8 ohm load - the rest of it in A/B - and yes it ran hot, but it sounded pretty good. I have had several of them through here. My first "real" amp was its predecessor the 1A - in its a day a pretty good sounding amp too.

Peter

I owned the SA100MKIII and preferred class A over AB, it was really liquid and had better weight and a deeper soundstage, also more of an intimate and revealing inner glow quality.

not quite tubes but as close as I have heard from SS.

no contest in my book, on Maggie 1.6 btw...

Clarification on my above post. I left my Plinius SA 100 MK III on 24/7 in A/B but when I switched it to class A it took at least 20 minutes to reach the sound I desired.

"I don't hear the holy grail from Class A. Thanks in advance for the input guys."

You should be if all is functioning fine, Class A should have a 3D quality instead of 2d like the A/B would have in comparision.

"the A is warm but a little fuzzy and bloated"

This could happen if the power supply is not up to task, as Class A mode will tax the power supply much more and bring it closer to satuartion point than A/B will, this satuation results in restricted dynamics, soft (bloated) bass loss of transparency. Remeber the power supply is the engine room of the amp.

Cheers George