Not true. Unfortunately I'm loosing. I'm paying for your electricity in subsidies, grants and feed in tariffs that come from my taxes. You're stealing from others... (
- don't hit me!)Ah! Some science! There has been recent mention of distortion at the speaker level with Class A. Could there be a relationship between speaker design and how they are typically driven? Since single ended Class A is atypical, might a speaker's operational characteristics be specifically designed for push pull /B /AB power transfer? Clearly since there are no class specific speakers, might they have designed them for the lowest common denominator? Hence some distortion if they are driven atypically?
Not true. Unfortunately I'm loosing. I'm paying for your electricity in subsidies, grants and feed in tariffs that come from my taxes. You're stealing from others... (
Not true because everybody pays the same subsidies etc regardless of supplier as part of the standing charges.
I merely took up an option that presented itself to me. There is nothing stopping you or anybody from paying less than 16p/kWh (pretty much what I paid with SSE before). Around here the cheapest supplier was Sainsbury's (or another supermarket offshoot) at just under 10p. Nothing green about their energy.
Another thing for me was that my supplier (Good Energy) is tied for top place when it comes to customer service and I have to say they are an absolute pleasure to deal with.
People avoid Class A power amplifiers because of heat. Heat in electronics is associated with something going wrong. You don't see heat until it's too late. Heat is uncontrollable. Heat causes thermal runoff in transistors. Heat shortens life of components. This is what the average public thinks about running a piece of equipment hot.
Owners of Class A amplifiers know you can live with heat. But for others Class A is simply not "cool".
Owners of Class A amplifiers know you can live with heat. But for others Class A is simply not "cool".
Frequently this is done.
The bottom line is that If you don't need BIG power then a Class A amp is reasonably practical. More power then A/B is more pragmatic.
Class D or Class H, not terribly relevant, imo. If you like them, use them.
There are lots of cool ways to build amps. One fellow designed a Class A 300B amp INTO a PP A/B topology - the 300B was floating or "bootstrapped" by the high power solid state devices. Very neat idea.
If you want to experiment with Class A PP, then the F5 is a good way to get started, although the design is sensitive to everything, all parts, power supply performance, output devices, etc...
The seminal solid state Class A amp was the original Levinson ML-2, rated at 25 watts and weighing in at around 100lbs.
_-_-
Why would the relationship be inversely proportional, except for prejudice ?
There is quite a bit of evidence that the best class D amps of today are just as good audibly as the best class A amps.
Nobody has really answered the question.
The simple reason Class A is avoided - for reasons explored in posts above - is simply: the widespread tendency to dismal low-efficiency speakers.
Once you get to 90dB/w +, Class A is eminently suitable and - once into truly sensitive speakers above c.95dB/w, about the only enjoyable way to proceed when teh transducer can be so revealing.
But no, apparantly 'we' need peeing-wars over watts-per-channel and theoretical in-room dynamic range , all starting with one hand tied behind your back... and that means not Class A.
Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other. Pick your prefered trade-off.
The simple reason Class A is avoided - for reasons explored in posts above - is simply: the widespread tendency to dismal low-efficiency speakers.
Once you get to 90dB/w +, Class A is eminently suitable and - once into truly sensitive speakers above c.95dB/w, about the only enjoyable way to proceed when teh transducer can be so revealing.
But no, apparantly 'we' need peeing-wars over watts-per-channel and theoretical in-room dynamic range , all starting with one hand tied behind your back... and that means not Class A.
Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other. Pick your prefered trade-off.
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I was thinking of Pano's useful recent survey of how much power do you really use.
Likewise, my amps of choice run to about 72W - into c.94dB/w - but I don't need anything like that. In fact one of my headphone amps can deliver about 2w into them, and (other than not being entirely optimised to drive such an impedance) go louder than I need or want. A 10w class A amp of my own devising for utter linearity is on the project list.
Likewise, my amps of choice run to about 72W - into c.94dB/w - but I don't need anything like that. In fact one of my headphone amps can deliver about 2w into them, and (other than not being entirely optimised to drive such an impedance) go louder than I need or want. A 10w class A amp of my own devising for utter linearity is on the project list.
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I used to run my Tannoy KRMs (92dB) with 250Wrms.
Sounded better to me and others than the QUAD 520 it replaced.
If it is just a better amp, the extra reserves or a bit of both I do not know.
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