Riddle me this...

Mezmo: The power dissipated in a "good" 50 wpc Class A amp is appr equivalent to what a "typical" 200 - 250 wpc Class AB amp has to dissipate. As such, the costs are about the same to produce. The low powered Class A amp may actually be more costly to produce as the chassis and components have to be able to dissipate more heat on a consistent basis than the more powerful yet lower biased / more thermally efficient AB amp.

Most "good quality" AB amps strive to deliver a good amount of Class A power ( 8 - 15 wpc ) and then switch over to Class B above those levels for increased dynamic headroom / circuit efficiency. Most "mass-fi" amps and quite a few "respected brands" run Class A for less than 2 watts or so.

An easy way to tell if your amp is highly biased is to feel the heatsinks of the amp at idle after being on for a while. If they are not physically warm to the touch, you have a low bias amp. Even if you have a huge amount of heatsinking available, Class A amps dissipate a ton of heat as their efficiency is quite low. Most of the "lost power" is converted into heat i.e. "thermal losses".

A simple trick that some "tweakers" / "modifiers" will do is to raise the bias level on an AB amp and make it richer. This means that the amp stays in Class A for a longer period of time before switching over into Class B for higher power demands. Thermal losses and heat are increased, but so is the linearity of the amp under "most" operating conditions. Sean
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My feeling for this kind of a trend is related to a few things. One, I think the trend now for a lot of companies is to multi channel gear, which even by the THX standard thing is promoting 100 watts/ch or more. And having been working around high end audio for years myself, I can see that multi channel, even high end multi-ch, outsells 2 channel by leaps and bounds! People getting into high end, are geared towards doing it with 5 channels and above it seems. And everyone promotes and recommends higher wattage for Surround sound for certain(unless using high sensitivity horns, which do better with tubes anyway) So all that I suspect leads towards an easy obselescence for tiny watt SS offerings...which is already dominated by "niche" tube amp makers for the "tweek" audiophile.(a small market proportionately).
Of what I speak, I speak largely for what's happening in the US market! I'm sure it might be different elsewhere.
If you are really interested in an answer to this question however, may I suggest calling Pass, Krell, and others personally, and talk to them?! That way you can get the inside shimmy as to what's the real reason!!
REally, I've worked in 4 high end audio stores, and 1 chain store over the years, and the Pass lower wattage amps were almost NEVER bought, and outweighed in sales vastely by larger X series amps, and multi channel amps as a whole! We had piles of 35w/ch class A opperation 2 channel SS amps in one store I worked in, and they sat there unmoved for years! I can honestly say i don't recall selling any lower wattage SS amps more than a few occasions, and mostly for high end sound in MULTIZONE/ROOM SYSTEMS, as secondary sound! Of all the lower wattage amps I sold, the tube amps far outweighed sales of SS similar wattage designs. Hummmmm....

Two, lower powered tube amps

Ron, I appreciate you getting involved in the discourse. You and Sean certainly make cogent points.

However, allow me to comment on your assertions as that of an outsider. One who values the McIntosh name, but does not see anything in the current lineup which would make me buy. What I have heard of the newer products does not interest me. Yes, they are high powered and can definitely put a lot of volume out. But, the sound does not appeal to me. I want a tube amp to be a tube amp. I want a tube amp to have delicacy, warmth, romance, musicality. I don't want to buy into the assertion that the sound of tubes and solid state is converging. I find that to be baloney. The best tube amps are not moving toward solid state sound. Tube amps which are moving toward that sound are companies like Audio Research(they may be abandoning this) and McIntosh. Tube amplifiers which many people buy because they sound like a Krell or Mark Levinson, but offer some sort of pride of ownership because the amp actually has tubes in it.

The classic, and most highly prized McIntosh products are those from the 1960's. Lower power, using less output tubes. There is always a buyer for these products either here on Audiogon or ebay.

These products, along with some other notable manufacturers, are what defined classic tube sound. I am of the opinion, and the comments of you and other McIntosh people sort of support this, that McIntosh considers these products to be a definite step down from their higher power stablemates.

The thing I would say to McIntosh is, look at the products that made the name of the company what it is. There are many out here that treasure the sonics of the older, lower power amplifiers. This is not an opinion, this is fact, borne out by the fact that when McIntosh reentered the tube amplifier market, it did so not with one of the newer, larger products, but a reissue of the MC275. Sales certainly reinforced the point that this type of product is viable in this day and age.

I have a dear friend who has some of the finest audio equipment that I have ever encountered. If it isn't pristine, both sonically and physically, he doesn't own it. In the first system one encounters in his home, a McIntosh 40 tube amplifier drives the mids/tweeters of a great sounding system. Countless people visit him, and are awed by the components he owns, yet the McIntosh amplifier NEVER fails to draw some of the most fervent attention.

I do not mean to refute your assertions. What you say is definitely valid. I put forth that there are those who go along with it, and those that don't. Otherwise, there would not be as many viable SET companies in the world as there are. Please allow the consumer the option of determining what is right and what is not right. There are people out here, who held fast in their tube amplifier(especially low power) love. They have driven speaker companies to address our need, those that cater to this market earn the sale, other speakers are overlooked. They are capable of taking a low powered amplifier and making magic with it. McIntosh need not lose sleep over the fact that they did not provide the buyer with 100, 200, or more watts. Believe me, these audiophiles will land on their feet.

What I am asking for is for McIntosh to recognize that some people wish to move to lower power, treasure the McIntosh brand, and would be delighted to be able to marry those two feelings. It would be a win - win situation; an amp for the buyer, sales for McIntosh. Personally, I will own a McIntosh amplifier at some point(my father claims we own one now, he says he has an old 40 laying around - but he's been saying this for about 5 years now...). Whether I buy new or used will solely be answered by McIntosh itself.

I'd like to add, that the speaker manufacturers are complicit in this deal. When the majority of speaker manufacturers are putting out multi-way speaker systems with sensitivity ratings in the mid 80 db range, that is going to require high wattage amps. And then on top of that, they make the speakers with a 4 ohm load, or even a 2 ohm load. It seems like the speaker makers are making every attempt to make a speaker that any amp will have trouble driving. Like some kind of "sick joke". I'm waiting for a speaker maker to come out with a speaker made of a solid bar of copper, with a zero ohm load, and a sensitivity of about 1db/watt/meter, and say "here, drive this! It gives perfect uniform response from DC to light in our pure-vacuum outer space test chamber, and is truly reference quality when driven by a 100 gigawatt nuclear reactor".

None of this is needed for proper audio reproduction, and many audiophiles are realizing that a reasonably efficient speaker design, with a moderately, or even low, powered amp can give excellent results, with equal or better sound than these giant boat anchors.

If your "dream speaker" is a 80db/watt power eater, then you need these high power amps. For the real world, it is totally unnecessary. And remember, if you do get amps like these to power your "dream speaker" it is not a free ride. You are paying the price of many additional gain stages and signal loss, which may actually reduce the sound that those speakers are supposed to reproduce. To say nothing of the hole it will put in your wallet.

When speaker makers start making their flagship speakers with 8 ohm loads and 95db sensitivity, then we will see the amplifier market change.

Trelja,

We are committed to continuing new tube designs as the market for these products is strong. Our current amp is a slightly larger version of the MC275 using twice the output tube compliment, 8- KT88s. This amp, the MC2102 is designed by the same engineer who designed the MC275, MC 240, MC225, MC60, MC40,MI200, MI75, MC30, etc., Sid Corderman. The MC2102 is son of 275 with a typical output of around 120 watts per channel. We also have the advantage of much beater coupling and power supply caps, rectifiers, wiring and other parts compared to the past.
We also have modern performance analysis equipment which lets us build a beater amp. If you take one of the old Mc
amps from the Golden Years and install modern parts the old design will sound just about the same as one of our new designs. The difference will be in the signal to noise ratio.
Our most popular tube amp in the 60s was the MC240. Kind of like the three bears I guess the middle one was just right.
We are of course concerned about future tube availability and the KT88/6550 seems to be the most popular tube and is made by a variety of companies in many countries. To build a new design based on less popular tube models would be a risky proposition. The Mc customer keeps their amp for a long time.
These new tubes are approaching or equaling the quality of the benchmark 6550 Tungsol and GEC KT88s. For comparison purposes we tube trace and compare the new ones VS the old.
In some ways tube fans have never had it so good.
If we could get a steady supply of transmitting triodes we would build a son of MI200 but this does not look likely.
Everyone seems to agree the current C2200 pre amp and MC2102 amp combo sounds great. Now if we could scale this down from $11,000 retail in a more compact package obviously we would find a market. We hear your request.
From a value standpoint you can not beat picking up one of the old amps on the used market and rebuilding it with new caps, resistors, etc. Gold plated RCA plugs are good too. Who cares about the collectors! I am in the middle of a of a stereo Marantz One / Six pre amp restoration now. Let the solder fly.

Thanks again,
Ron Cornelius