Class A amplifiers - which are considered the best

The Krell KSA80, KMA160, et al were not Class A designs. They were Class A/B amplifiers, which operated with elevated Class A bias (usually to around 10% of their maximum power output). To the best of my knowledge, ONLY the fan cooled Krells were real Class A amps.

The KSA80 and KMA160 did preceed the KSA250, but they were still Class A/B amps. I have a brochure somewhere around where Krell acknowledge the power consuption of the amps. The power consumption is a dead giveaway that they were not Class A designs.

Love to see that brochure. In any event, they sure fooled me. Still thought they were great sounding amps. I couldn't get past the sound of those fans on their predecessors.

@Sidekick I do agree the Karans do sound good but their claims for 470W Class A in that chassis that's comparable in size to the Krell 25W mono blocks seems odd, don't you think?

Krells are great amps, just that we were mislead quite a bit by many manufactures even today about Class A.

eg: Zaphod1000 said he once measure Musical Fidelity's little A1 integrated (you know the one, you wanted to wipe your feet on it)in spec, at 2 odd watts class A, they quoted 20watts!!
And their big daddy of yester year the A370 at 12 watts, they quoted 185watts!!.

Cheers George