Tubes/SS Power Amps?

Orpheus10,

I'm going to give you the advice that, I'm sure, many other readers of this thread are thinking of:

If you want tube flavored sound without the heat of tubes and class A ss amps, you should try out a quality tubed preamp of your choice with a class D ss amp or monoblocs. You didn't mention your budget or other components but here are some good class D amps that may give you what you're searching for:

Acoustic Imagery Atsah monoblocs

Mola-Mola monoblocs

Merrill Audio Veritas monoblocs

All 3 incorporate the latest technology in class D technology, the Hypex Ncore NC1200 switching amp modules. All 3 of these amps have high power capabilities, are generally neutral in sonic nature,run at about room temperature and I think they all are about $10-12,000/pair. Although they each utilize the same Hypex modules, they all also use proprietary methods in their surrounding designs. I've recently become a class D fan after pairing my mid-level tubed preamp with a budget ClassD Audio stereo amp. My amp is not in the same league as the monoblocs I suggested above but I am still more than thrilled with mine, anyway. You should probably give atleast one of these amps a tryout in your system prior to purchasing another amp, IMO. If your speakers require a high powered amp(s), I would even say it's a must audition.

Good luck on your search,
Tim

When there were such places as "High end emporiums", I spent so much time in those places, that my wife swore I was seeing another woman; she couldn't believe that I was obsessed with "high end sound". This was at the same time I began to subscribe to "Stereophile". After reading "Recommended components", I would go to the salon and audition whatever they had, this way I learned to classify sound by "A", "B", or "C". The SS amps were affordable class "C", while the tube amps were class "A" and "B"; consequently, I never heard a Class "A" SS amp.

In case no one has noticed, our summers are getting hotter, and AC bills are getting higher. If I'm going to have a furnace in my listening room, it certainly wont be a SS furnace. All the SS amps I've owned ran cool, but I never owned a Class "A" SS amp, and from what I've read in the reviews, "they all run hot", and that's the problem. Does anyone know of a Class "A" SS that doesn't run hot. Here is a list of Class "A" SS amps: Bryston, Classe, darTZeel, Halcro, Jeff Rowland, Lamm, Pass Labs, Musical Fidelity, and of course there are many other high quality SS amps. In regard to the "stereotypical" tube, SS comments, that's the way it was, and not necessarily the way it is. ARC sounds awfully SS to me, and CJ has changed from the way the used to sound, to a sound closer to ARC.

Jfrech, the Ayre VX-5 looks absolutely stunning, A Herron at about the same price is on my audition list; thanks for the "heads up".

Orpheeus10, You mentioned the system by which stereophile rates and then puts amplifiers into classes. Just for clarity, these were the amplifier classifications I was talking about.

Conduction angle classes
Class A
100% of the input signal is used (conduction angle Θ = 360°. The active element remains conducting[6] all of the time.
Class B
50% of the input signal is used (Θ = 180°); the active element carries current half of each cycle, and is turned off for the other half.
Class AB
Class AB is intermediate between class A and B, the two active elements conduct more than half of the time
Class C
Less than 50% of the input signal is used (conduction angle Θ < 180°).
A "Class D" amplifier uses some form of pulse-width modulation to control the output devices; the conduction angle of each device is no longer related directly to the input signal but instead varies in pulse width. These are sometimes called "digital" amplifiers because the output device is switched fully on or off, and not carrying current proportional to the signal amplitude.

The above is sourced from Wikipedia.

Orpheus10- I think Phaelon is on to something. Perhaps you have Class A operation confused w Sterephile Quality ratings? All Class A operation amps run hot because their active elements (read transistors) are carrying current all of the time. The heat from Class AB amps vary, as they can be designed (biased) to run more in Class A or to switch to Class B sooner. Not all excellent SS Class AB amps run hot. For example, the McCormack amps I owned all never got more than warm. McCormack amps modified by Steve's SMcAudio are outstanding amps if you want to get something that runs cool. A cooler running tube option would be one of the ZOTL amps from David Berning. Or consider higher eff speakers that can be run w "smaller" tube amps like the RAM RM-10.

Guys, I appreciate that Orpheus asked about SS/tube amps and raised a specific concern about heat. I think many of the posts above are excellent and responsive.

However, it's unclear whether Orpheus has considered electrical compatibility with his speakers. Not sure that Orpheus mentioned what his speakers are. Look . . . I own ARC tube gear. I love it. Put tractor tracks and a cannon on the gear and you'll have a tank -- for me, 4 tanks.

Even still, the articles I cited above do a great job explaining electrical compatibility issues with tube and SS amps. In fact, the issue is even more subtle because if a speaker was designed and voiced to be driven by one type of amp versus the other, matching the wrong amp can affect the acoustic presentation.

I'm done harping. I just think electrical compatibility is the first thing to get out of the way.

Cheers.