Your Favorite Class A or AB Amplifier?

[jean-paul]

From what i understand the Sony TA-F808ES runs pure class A until a certain volume level. To my ears those class A and AB amps sound a lot better than Class D.. Hopefully I am ok saying that! Class D can still be nice if an analog source is hooked in.

Yep that's what is called class AB. It is a kind of Newspeak to mention it to be "class A and at a certain volume level class AB" which should really be "class A and at a certain volume level class B" as that simply is the definition of class AB 🙂 Many that do know better do this as a kind of shame for having a device that has the supposedly inferior class AB and not "pure class A".

Meanwhile pure class D is maturing with lately some quite good performers like MA12070. It is here to stay anyway and it is also very now and not yesterdays paper so why not invest 30 Euro (and do some rework) to check it out?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1751050635...Y4fE3BjNl2vgWKigSBqxh5aLura1|tkp:BFBMsJapucFg

 

[analog_sa]

"class A and at a certain volume level class B" as that simply is the definition of class AB 🙂

Perhaps more confusing for many people is that push pull "pure class A" amps follow the exact same definition.

 

[PRR]

How do you get an SE amp to be Class AB?

Turn your Champ up to "11", put a booster in front, and beat it into grid-blocking.

FWIW a large class of radio transmitters work this way. SE but biased to near-cut-off. Very small signals pass both half-waves ("kinda-A") on the low-Gm end of the transfer curve. Big signals come out half-wave ("B"), but distortion in AM or SSB will be rounded-out by tuned circuits.