Ditching Class A Amps due to Heat - Sort of a Poll

Have you done away with your Class A Amp due to Heat concerns?    No. Because mine don't generate heat.

Will you be moving away from Class A Amp due to Heat concerns?  No. See above.

Will you never buy a Class A Amp due to Heat concerns?  No. Mostly because I'm not going to buy another amp.

Let me state at the outset that I own SS amps. Monoblocs. Actually, SS exclusively along the entire signal path.

A few extraneous thought arose as I read through the thread. I keep my house at 63 - 64 degrees in winter. The room where my amps are is slightly colder because it's over the garage and the thermostat is down the hall.

The majority of responses focused on tube Class A. I'm not going to defend SS Class A or denigrate tube Class A.  You listen to what you like and what pleases you. Many years ago, before I bought my system, I read a lot of arguments about tube versus solid state. In that reading I found a gem of a statement by one of the better well-known designers. I think it was Carver, but I could be way off with that. The statement was, essentially, that solid state amps could be biased to sound like anything... tube included. The bottom line is decide what you like to listen to, then buy the best you can afford. I found what I liked and bought that. I guess they were biased correctly for me.

If you really want to get into the climate change concerns, answer these questions for yourself. What car do you drive? The amp you're running is minuscule compared to a car. For myself, I got rid of my ICE vehicle and will drive 100% EV as soon as it arrives.

Whatever you drive; how many times do you walk instead of drive? I walk a lot (and did so before I got rid of the ICE.) Maybe I'm lucky in that I live in a neighborhood where walking is feasible. It only takes me 30 minutes to walk to the supermarket or hardware store, etc.

What temperature do you keep your house at? As stated, I keep it 63 - 64 in winter. 73 - 74 in summer.  I live in the northeast.  It gets both cold and hot and humid.

To brian61. You really should have differentiated your question between SS and tube amps.

Happy listening.

No AC in the house. Only very quiet ceiling fans and windows that open to the trade winds. So despite my tube gear I really don't expend much electricity overall. As for disturbing neighbors, I don't play my stereo very loud, in any case.

I admit I’m more of a green, tree-hugger type, but I’m into audio for great sound and if it took a fire-breathing, Class-A monster to get the sound I love I wouldn’t think twice and would never say a word to anyone else who chose to go that route. That said, I really wish more solid-state, Class-A amp manufacturers would do like Plinius and some Clayton models do and employ a high/low bias switch so it’s possible to leave the amp on 24/7 and not ravage the electric bill or turn the room into a sauna. Seems like such a simple thing to implement, and it comes with the added benefit of not having to constantly turn the amp on and off, which greatly compromises long-term reliability along with the annoyance of having to wait for the amp to reach its optimal operating temperature. Case in point, I recently got my DNA 0.5 amp upgraded by SMcAudio where the on/off switch only operates the power light to let the wife know it’s on when in actuality the amp is always on when it’s plugged in. They do this because they feel strongly that leaving the amp on in a steady state is much better for amp longevity than turning the amp on and off and putting it through the stress of temperature changes, etc. Anyway, I say to each his own, live and let live and so on, but if I did have a power-hungry amp I’d be taking a long, hard look at the new GaN amps from the likes of AtmaSphere, AGD, etc. as we really seem to have turned a ground-breaking corner in both sound-quality potential and efficiency. When Ralph says he’s happy using his new GaN amp over his wonderful OTL tube amps that speaks volumes to me. Anyway…

I have owned tube amps and Class A amps (Plinius, Bedini, Pass Labs, First Watt) but my favorite is my Jeff Rowland Continuum S2 Class D integrated.