Why do I like Class AB better than Class A?

Elizabeth,

Your PURE Class A Forte 4A was biased at 800 mA per node - resulting in an astonishing 9 watts in Pure class A into a 8 ohm load - the rest of it in A/B - and yes it ran hot, but it sounded pretty good. I have had several of them through here. My first "real" amp was its predecessor the 1A - in its a day a pretty good sounding amp too.

Peter

I owned the SA100MKIII and preferred class A over AB, it was really liquid and had better weight and a deeper soundstage, also more of an intimate and revealing inner glow quality.

not quite tubes but as close as I have heard from SS.

no contest in my book, on Maggie 1.6 btw...

Clarification on my above post. I left my Plinius SA 100 MK III on 24/7 in A/B but when I switched it to class A it took at least 20 minutes to reach the sound I desired.

"I don't hear the holy grail from Class A. Thanks in advance for the input guys."

You should be if all is functioning fine, Class A should have a 3D quality instead of 2d like the A/B would have in comparision.

"the A is warm but a little fuzzy and bloated"

This could happen if the power supply is not up to task, as Class A mode will tax the power supply much more and bring it closer to satuartion point than A/B will, this satuation results in restricted dynamics, soft (bloated) bass loss of transparency. Remeber the power supply is the engine room of the amp.

Cheers George

Hey, thanks for all the feedback. I have Snell type AIII's, now I know there not very efficient but this amp certainly has brought more bottom end slam than my BAT. The rest, AIFF,Pure music, MacMini, Wyred4sound DAC 2, Aesthetix Calypso Pre with Nos Tubes, oh and dedicated 20 amp outlets plugged straight in. I was hoping someone would tell me I would need to get used to the class A sound. I will let her warm up more than the hour I usually give it and see what happens.