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Pass Labs heatsinks temperature

Hi all

I have Pass Labs xa60.5 monoblocks and they are always warm to the touch at the heatsinks and not as hot as other class A amps I'm familiar with. A friend from the US that has the same model visited my place and told me his amps ran very much hotter than mine. I got concerned and looked at the manual where temperature was estimated at 55 degrees Celsius. I estimate mine at around 40 Degrees. I'm concerned my amps are not biased to pure class A as they should be. I contacted Pass and while they repeated that heat should be around 55 deg. they had no idea if my concerns are valid and they sounded quite mysterious about it. Did anyone has a xa.5 series model ever measured its temperature or has an idea what can I measure without opening the amps (with a technician) that will prove that they are working only in pure class A ?
Thanks in advance
icorem
map
25 posts
 
I have had two XA30.5 amps and I can/could keep my hands
on the heatsinks for as long as I want/wanted. Not sure
what temperature they actually get/got to, but it definitely
is not as hot as advertised. My hot water heater is set
to around 120F and our hot water is much hotter (by the time
it gets to a faucet).
jdoris
972 posts
 
I've had the same experience with James 123 and Map with my Pass INT-30A: warm to touch (including the beefy face plate), but not hot.

John
johngp's avatar
johngp
226 posts
 
This thread got me a little curious so last night I measured the temp on the cooling fins on both of my amps(XA-100.5's). I could find no area that was over 119.8F, the amps have been in stand-by mode for several days and had been fully on and running for several hours. Not sure if this will help but thought I'd toss it in the mix.
jdoris
972 posts
 
Thanks for the measurement, Johngp. That's about 20 degrees above normal body temperature, which I'd expect to be experienced as pretty warm to the touch, but far from jerk your hand away hot. That's about what I feel on my INT-30A. I lust after your 100s, of course, though I'm loving the simplicity of an integrated.

John
icorem OP
149 posts
 
Johngp

Thanks for your input. I think that the front left part of each amp between the heatsinks is the warmest point. Was it there where you got the 120 degrees read ?
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