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

I tan a Plinius class A amp for a while but it seemed to lack power. Switched to class A/B not because of heat but performance. I like the A/B much better.

@earthbound 

+260,000      Why?

Well said !!!    The single most relevant, important post ever on this forum.

You have no children!

Nor do I.

At population replacement rate, those with children will have brought 131,000 more people into the world within 500 years, all consuming resources and energy.  Then the next 30 years will bring 128,000 more.

I will have brought.......none.

It doesn't half shut up the tree-huggers who complain about my big house, big old cars, big hi-fi etc.  They have nothing, NOTHING to say.  Their progeny will pollute the planet for ever or until a big meteor hit, a nuclear holocaust or the sun expands, whichever comes first.

As it happens, Class A has been on my shopping list lately. So my answers are ’no’ to all three questions. But energy consumption issues do factor in.

As others have mentioned, various manufacturers use plateau bias to reduce typical class A power consumption, including Krell obviously (they’ve done that for a while). An Evolution 302 is probably the sweet spot for me (might stretch to the 400 mono pair, you never know). But it will have to be e-series, with the 2 watt standby, not the previous model, which uses ~60 watts just sitting idle. A pity, because there’s a very tidy and wicked looking black 302 (non-e) listed on the ’Gon right now.

The new one should use less energy that my current KAV-series Krell, which is AB but doesn’t have an efficient idle/standby. I'd be curious to see how a Purifi-based amp like the tidy units Mr March makes (I'm in Australia) would sound. But I'd need to hear one, last time I tried a modern design (LLC power supply, negative feedback) the sonics were disappointing.

We pay over the base market offer for 100% green power, but still factor energy efficiency into purchasing decisions. For most anything that uses significant power. There’s no need to be a f*ckwit.