Are There Any Inherent Advantages to Class A amps?

"The Krell is probobly [SIC] pure class a for the first few watts or so."

That's class AB, Radiob.

Mitch, I believe class-A-biased amps have an inherent sound-quality advantage over class-AB-biased amps, but in well-designed amps, this advantage is overwhelmed...swamped...by other differences. Buy according to the usual criteria...

Class-A amps do make great room heaters! :-)

"A Class A amp can't switch to Class A/B--it doesn't have
the second "mirror-image" amplifier chain to handle the
opposite polarity. An amp that is Class A only has a single
chain--and it is biased so that it conducts during 100% of
the cycle--both positive and negative."

Morbius, that's not correct. You're confusing 'single-ended' with 'class a'. The first is a circuit-design principle wherein one output device does indeed handle both swings of the alternating-current signal. The 2nd deals with how much bias current is pushed continously thru the output device(s). Every solidstate class-A amp I know of (and that's not many) is push/pull and NOT single-ended.

These are 2 different design considerations.

Well, we seem to be splitting hairs here.

I was specifically addressing Morbius's comment, which is still incorrect in that class-A amps can indeed be push/pull as are all the solidstate class-A-biased amps I've ever seen (and, as I said, that's not many, as I do not study everything this crazy industry markets).

So I'll agree that the output devices of push/pull class-A-biased amps do indeed conduct the entire waveform if you'll agree that Morbius's statement is incorrect.