Tubes/SS Power Amps?

When there were such places as "High end emporiums", I spent so much time in those places, that my wife swore I was seeing another woman; she couldn't believe that I was obsessed with "high end sound". This was at the same time I began to subscribe to "Stereophile". After reading "Recommended components", I would go to the salon and audition whatever they had, this way I learned to classify sound by "A", "B", or "C". The SS amps were affordable class "C", while the tube amps were class "A" and "B"; consequently, I never heard a Class "A" SS amp.

In case no one has noticed, our summers are getting hotter, and AC bills are getting higher. If I'm going to have a furnace in my listening room, it certainly wont be a SS furnace. All the SS amps I've owned ran cool, but I never owned a Class "A" SS amp, and from what I've read in the reviews, "they all run hot", and that's the problem. Does anyone know of a Class "A" SS that doesn't run hot. Here is a list of Class "A" SS amps: Bryston, Classe, darTZeel, Halcro, Jeff Rowland, Lamm, Pass Labs, Musical Fidelity, and of course there are many other high quality SS amps. In regard to the "stereotypical" tube, SS comments, that's the way it was, and not necessarily the way it is. ARC sounds awfully SS to me, and CJ has changed from the way the used to sound, to a sound closer to ARC.

Jfrech, the Ayre VX-5 looks absolutely stunning, A Herron at about the same price is on my audition list; thanks for the "heads up".

Orpheeus10, You mentioned the system by which stereophile rates and then puts amplifiers into classes. Just for clarity, these were the amplifier classifications I was talking about.

Conduction angle classes
Class A
100% of the input signal is used (conduction angle Θ = 360°. The active element remains conducting[6] all of the time.
Class B
50% of the input signal is used (Θ = 180°); the active element carries current half of each cycle, and is turned off for the other half.
Class AB
Class AB is intermediate between class A and B, the two active elements conduct more than half of the time
Class C
Less than 50% of the input signal is used (conduction angle Θ < 180°).
A "Class D" amplifier uses some form of pulse-width modulation to control the output devices; the conduction angle of each device is no longer related directly to the input signal but instead varies in pulse width. These are sometimes called "digital" amplifiers because the output device is switched fully on or off, and not carrying current proportional to the signal amplitude.

The above is sourced from Wikipedia.

Orpheus10- I think Phaelon is on to something. Perhaps you have Class A operation confused w Sterephile Quality ratings? All Class A operation amps run hot because their active elements (read transistors) are carrying current all of the time. The heat from Class AB amps vary, as they can be designed (biased) to run more in Class A or to switch to Class B sooner. Not all excellent SS Class AB amps run hot. For example, the McCormack amps I owned all never got more than warm. McCormack amps modified by Steve's SMcAudio are outstanding amps if you want to get something that runs cool. A cooler running tube option would be one of the ZOTL amps from David Berning. Or consider higher eff speakers that can be run w "smaller" tube amps like the RAM RM-10.

Guys, I appreciate that Orpheus asked about SS/tube amps and raised a specific concern about heat. I think many of the posts above are excellent and responsive.

However, it's unclear whether Orpheus has considered electrical compatibility with his speakers. Not sure that Orpheus mentioned what his speakers are. Look . . . I own ARC tube gear. I love it. Put tractor tracks and a cannon on the gear and you'll have a tank -- for me, 4 tanks.

Even still, the articles I cited above do a great job explaining electrical compatibility issues with tube and SS amps. In fact, the issue is even more subtle because if a speaker was designed and voiced to be driven by one type of amp versus the other, matching the wrong amp can affect the acoustic presentation.

I'm done harping. I just think electrical compatibility is the first thing to get out of the way.

Cheers.

I'm sure you've heard about the generally different distortion characteristics between tube and solid state amplifiers. I find the difference quite dramatic and I'm driving my tube amplifiers with a solid state preamplifier.

If it's simply a matter of heat, Carver tube amplifiers power tubes actually run cool to the touch. My plasma display puts out much more heat than the Carvers.