Pure Class A amps above 100 Watts?

Gryphon Colosseum Stereo amp, 160w Class A. Smooth, powerful, and fast. 175lbs.

Your less than $10k requirement and greater than 100w Class A requirement are in conflict with each other.

Hello George,

  Thanks for putting my rather modest efforts in perspective, haha! 

  We need the audio equivalent of Jay Leno’s Garage, where we could all wander around a big warehouse space and look at sound systems from various eras.

  As for sound, my proudest moment was when I tricked an electrician into thinking I was playing the cello. The electrician was working in my kitchen and I put on Pablo Casals playing the Bach Cello Suites, in the living room. I went off into the bedroom to work on the computer. Later, the electrician told me he went out into the living room expecting to see me there playing the cello, lol.

  I had my classical guitar teacher sit down and listen to the stereo. He kept pointing at the big Gryphon and asking if that was the third speaker. Haha. 

  

  
  

My Gryphon Colosseum draws 500w while idling. I don’t idle, meaning, letting it run without signal, so that is no worry to me, lol. I can’t see how any Class A amp can draw only a few watts when the point of Class A is that the transistors are on all the time. 

Once ConEd installs smart meters, I’ll get to see how much my monster draws. I know it’s not going to be pretty.

Haha, George, what a trip! Thanks for sharing that information. 

Do you have any pictures of that water cooled amp? Nothing succeeds like excess. I owned a Mac computer that was water/liquid cooled. It weighed a ton. How much did your amp weigh?

I guess you wouldn’t want your water cooling system to spring a leak, would you? I’m terrified of anybody approaching my Colosseum with a drink in their hand, a fear shared by my friend who runs the Mephisto Solo mono blocks.

By the way, my Gryphon Colosseum
seems to be running fine off of a Niagara 5000. I decided I needed some protection from power surges. My friend with the Mephisto solos is running each on a 5000 and he decided he didn’t need a third 5000 so he sold it to me.