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How hot is hot when moving from class a/b to to a or tubes?

I am considering moving from a class a/b Luxman L509x to a class a or tube amp. 
I have never owned a class a or tube amp, so have no experience of living with one. My kids are hopefully old enough and wise enough not to burn themselves, but I do live in an already warm house with bifold doors leading to a south facing garden. There is no escaping the sun, despite having uv treated glass. 
 
My room is roughly 9 meters by 12 open planed living space. Equipment is, Luxman L-509x integrated, Zu union 6 supreme, 99db sensitivity (this is why I am considering a lower powered tube I can barely turn the Luxman up) music is played roughly 6 hours a day, more on weekends  

who here has moved from class a/b and d to class a with or without tubes. What were the differences of things like:

warming up time 

additional heat to the home

Running in summer time 

additional cost to run

any considerations I should make before purchasing something. I will try in my home, but will need to free up funds 
 

 

mpoll1

Showing 2 responses by ghdprentice

ghdprentice
6,435 posts
 

I have all Audio Research Reference gear… nearly 40 tubes. 140 watts per channel. I just went over and held my hand around one of the power tubes… it was slightly hot… touching it, it felt very warm… maybe hot… but you would have to work to get it to burn you. The preamp has 7 tubes is slightly warm. On top of unit.

 

I have a large room, never noticed it warming the room… but when it 100+ degrees out my air conditioner is on. It does nothing to warm the room.

 

I seriously doubt my listening amounts to more than a couple dollars a month. 
 

‘’The design does determine the heat. Some designers use the tubes to their max and will generate more heat and shorter tube life. My tube life is over 3,000 hours per set.

 

To me this is completely a non-issue compared with the incredible sound quality you get with a great tube amp.

ghdprentice
6,435 posts
 

Also, on warm up. It depends. I could talk about the warm up on the previous versions of Audio Research preamps, in great length. But I really don’t notice much of any with the current Reference models. While earlier warm ups were only 10 to 15 minutes. I’m just not hearing any with contemporary amps and preamps. It used to really stick out… you could not help hear it… but today I am just not hearing it. There may be a little… but if so, really subtle.

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