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Parasound A51 - Different Temp Heatsinks?

Hello All,

I wanted to post this as I'm unfamiliar with what I'm experiencing and unsure if it'll be a problem down the road. I picked up a Parasound A51 amp and using the RCA connections with a Pioneer Elite as a preamp. The amp is running KEF XQ5's for front, KEF XQ2C for center, and KEF KHT9000ACE for rears. The amp is placed on my hardwood floor and not in my entertainment center as the space needed for airflow is not optimal for this piece of gear.

I've noticed that at normal listening volume, the back heat sink gets warm and can get hot to the touch after hours of playback. The heat sinks on the left get hot as well, while the heat sinks on the right remain warm. The unit itself is hot on the top-back and is cool moving towards the top-front. I've swapped speaker connections to see if the heat sinks change in temp but they do not.

Should I be concerned about the heat? I've had sessions of 6-8 hours + with no clipping or any affect to playback (sounds good actually). I'm wondering if this is typical of amps of this caliber.

Thanks
papagura
rlwainwright
1,904 posts
 
Don't sweat it, your amps obviously aren't...

-RW-
papagura OP
9 posts
 
I guess my main concern with the heat would be the eventual breakdown of the components inside. Is that a probability?
stanwal's avatar
stanwal
3,147 posts
 
Have you considered what the combined impedance of the speakers amount to? It may constitute a very low impedance load; a transistor amp will attempt to double its output when the impedance is halved.For example my CJ 350 barely gets warm driving my 8 ohm Spendors but gets quite hot driving the GamuT
L5s which go down to 2 ohms. Or the bias could be turned too high or it could be normal.
papagura OP
9 posts
 
Hi Stanwal

All speakers are rated at 8ohm and should be easy to drive. I'm wondering if the speakers are so efficient that the amp is putting out only class A watts since it's at normal listening volume (first 10-15 watts at class A then it goes into Class A/B)? If it is a bias issue, what would I need to do to correct it?
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