@millercarbon
With your depth of experience and knowledge I was hoping for something more substantial. A class-y response that would actually help me :)
Sorry, but the idea of shopping amps by design class and room is so ripe for ridicule that WAS the classy response. Its one small step down from the ones who want a certain size to fit on a shelf or whatever. At least that has some merit. Or relevance in the physical world. The idea of Class A vs AB because: living room? Sorry. Does not merit anything but cracking wise.
We here at Chez Miller select amps based on sound quality, performance features, and budget. What class it operates in never enters the picture. Now if its a small room and one amp generates a lot of heat that’s a performance consideration that may rule out Class A- but may also rule out tubes. Either way its nothing to do with Class. We don’t care about that. Designers care about that. Not users.
Its just nuts for users to fantasize about this stuff as if they know the first thing about it anyway. We have a guy here knows all about it, and every time he posts nobody understands a word but they all fake out like they do. The whole charade goes on and on until it gets to where we have a thread like this, I want to put a system in my laundry room, what Class A or AB?? Is all tubes okay for my walk-in closet or is a hybrid phono stage better?
There comes a point, see, where the subject gets so goofball humor really is the classiest response.
On a seriously helpful note, and as always: forget what class the damn thing is. Focus on sound quality, performance features, and budget. In that order.