Class A amplifiers - which are considered the best
I have heard Accuphase makes the highest quality pure class A amplifiers. Wanted to get some feedback on folks experience with their amps and any other amp manufacturers that would be in their league (or better) for class a amps. thanks
Thx Rx8man, my real name should have been georgehifi but for some reason Audiogon would not let me use this, so I went with the next thing I could remember. Here is a more descriptive post of the self contained water cooled class A I built. http://www.stereo.net.au/forums/showthread.php/37548-Living-with-Pure-Class-A-in-Australia?p=560887&viewfull=1#post560887
Question: NAD "Power Envelope" amps....Hope I'm not going too far off topic, but with the recent comments about sliding bias circuitry, I'm genuinely curious about what, if any, similarities exist between the NAD 2600a method (mid 1990's) and the Krell method. The NAD's have never been called Class A, have they ?
I believe the "power envelope" did nothing extra for the class A bias. What I believe it did do was to aid in transient ability with a bit more short term current from the power supply. This way they saved on big expensive power supplies, and got a result that was better than using a mediocre supply. I lifted this explanation from DIY audio, make of it what you will. "The cheaper PE receivers used two ± power supply rails with a fast diode on the lower rails feeding the outputs, a polyswitch was in series with the upper rails."
Rleff, The idea was an analog setup that used a feedforward system so that the bias is mapped in sync with the output signal. In effect there would be no 'decision point', merely a minimum level that represents no signal at all- as soon as you have some signal, the bias is increased or decreased in exact synchronization with the signal, so the amplifier is always operating in the class A region. However so far things have gone if favor of the KISS principle- So far the evidence suggests that such a system will produce some artifact.
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