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Class A bias, speaker sensitivity, watts...?

Hello

Please help me understand the relationship between Class A bias and wattage output. I recently bought a used Vincent Audio SV236MK used for a great price. The specs state 150 watts into 8 ohms, 250 into 4 ohms, and the first 10 watts being Class A @ 8 ohms.

My speakers are Sonus Faber Lumina II which are rated as 4 Ohm with 86db sensitivity. Everything is set up in my small cube shaped office. I used a DB meter on my iPhone and found that when I turn the volume up to what I consider to be "loud" the peak measurement I get is 80db and under.

 

Given the specs above, am I hearing mostly/all Class A watts while listening?

craigvmn
richardbrand's avatar
richardbrand
274 posts
 

@invalid

True.  Even the electron has its spin!

agwca
130 posts
 

Would like to try a really accomplished class A someday but don't want to deal with heat.  Same with tubes I suppose.  Purportedly, some class D can sound very class A like and that could be the best option.

But if space suffers, instrument sep. and stage depth isn't there, I wouldn't like it overall regardless if how smooth it sounded.

If you have 10 watts of class A, it should perform well at both low to moderate SPLs including dynamic swings.  The occasion peaks into class AB, etc probably wouldn't be audible until you turn it up to louder levels and at that point, its hard to listen too for longer periods of time and without risk to hearing.

oberoniaomnia
104 posts
 

Re current capabilities, is there a measurement, or some type of spec number? I would imagine that the µ/m-Farad value of the caps would be an indicator, but then there is also the maximum discharge speed F/s (= slew rate???) playing a role.

Capacitor values are not frequently given in specs. Tried to find it for my Pass XA25; there was a bulletin board mention of 18x 10K µF caps = 180 mF. If correct, is that a lot or not? Not the foggiest. How is discharge rate affected by cap size? I would imagine that many small caps discharge faster than one large one (assuming same total F value).

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