Do you understand your amplifier?

Hi Cathode, Normally I would completely agree with you, but last weekend, my electrical engineer neighbor asked me how to tell which breaker was bad in his box. I tried to loan him a meter and finally went to his house and showed him. You never know.

I see questions like, "I am looking for a tube like solid state amplifier"? Would it not help to understand that MOSFETS are voltage sensitive very similar to tubes and used in a class A biased configuration can be made to sound tube like with very rich second harmonic content. This was one of the goals of Nelson Pass's Aleph amps if I understand correctly. It is simply an aide in the selection process and save some time. Obviously your ears will be the final judge.

Having built a couple of valve amplifiers I would say I understand my amplifiers less now than I did before and find myself wondering how my amps really feel about this. However There is a noteable difference between pentode and triode.

Timlub - Ha! Is your neighbor gainfully employed?