Amplifier Weight. A Factor?


With majority of the good high-end amplifiers exceeding 100lb, it is actually painful to move them. So, here are questions to all.
Is amplifier’s weight a factor in your amplifier selection?
If you own heavy weight amps (i.e. Krell FPB600/180lb, Levinson 33/365 lb), how do you handle them without scratch?

Ldk
ldk
ther are new ICE Powered class D amps that can put out over 500 watts @8 ohms and weigh only 7.5 pounds, plus it is only a bit over $2000 for a pair of Mono Blocks, Ric Shultz is sending some for review and a friend of mine ordered a pair to replace his 2000 watt Krell, should be very interesting to hear his impressions.
Sbrtoy is right.The monster SS amps will become dinasours if they are not already.Many of them also sound apalling-some are reasonable, so the belief that heavier is better is a flawed generalisation.Most lightweight chipamps and the newer breed of PWM /digital type amps like NuForce sound better,run cooler and are comparatively very light.Not to mention much cheaper.Audio retailers hate them for this of course.
Tube amps are a different matter however,although I have heard some very ordinary sounding monster SETs that are not as good as a much lighter PP types.
Let your ears do your buying,not your eyes or muscles.
There are many high efficiency speakers out there.No more need for me to go for big heavy amps.Anyway a lot of the watts are wasted as heat,in cross-over and to adjust the sensitivity of the drivers.
As Macrojack mentioned, it's all in how you start off. If you buy inefficient speakers you wind up with large heavy power amps. With my highly efficient speakers, my analog power amp only weighs 20 lbs and puts out 60 watts and can bring the music to concert hall levels, well almost.
Jtgofish, if it`s one thing most Class D amps aren`t is cheap. Very poor bang for the buck.