Class A multi-channel amp?


Does anyone know if anybody makes a 5 or 7 channel class A amp? Does not need a lot of power and similar to a 5 channel Clayton s40.
wsrivard

Showing 3 responses by sean

I have to agree with Arthur. That is, an amp with 5 channels running at 100 watts RMS in Class A would melt the shelf that it was resting on let alone make the chassis glow !!!

Having said that, i sincerely doubt if there is a multi-channel amp that will provide the sonics that you are looking for. As mentioned above, you'll probably have to resort to several individual amps that combine to give you the desired amount of channels. You simply can't cram all the support circuitry, power supplies and heatsinking for multiple channels with that level of sonics into one box. No matter what you do on a multi-channel amp, you're going to get cross-talk between the channels due to using a common power cord. This is true even with amps that use dedicated transformers for each channel. I don't know of any company that makes a 5 channel amp that uses 5 separate power cords. Sean
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El: Simulating tube sonics in a SS piece of gear typically means slower response times and less control of the drivers. This softens the leading edge of instruments, making them sound "less aggessive" or "more enjoyable" ( especially with typical digital recordings ). At the same time, you end up with a rounder, warmer bass. This tends to fill in the lack of body that many hard, cold and sterile digital recordings suffer from. Both of these are colourations related to poor technical performance but could be pleasurable to listen to.

As far as the distortion characteristics of the amp go, i think that John Curl measured phenomenally high levels of distortion on both odd and even orders, making this more like a poorly designed Integrated Circuit ( IC ) based component than a tube or Class A design.

While i may sound like i'm attacking / belittling these amps, the bottom line is that you like and are enjoying them. Who cares what i or anyone else thinks. Sean
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El: many switching amps have gone to a design that uses a very high / fast switching frequency. This moves the potential for in-band noise of any measurable amplitude further away from reality. As such, some such designs offer excellent linearity out to well beyond 80 KHz or so with minimal distortion. If everything is done right, that means that the amp will have the speed to pass a square wave with good linearity up to at least 8 KHz. Anything above that frequency, in terms of musical notes or test signals, would be hit or miss depending on the individual design.

Other units, with a lower switching frequency, lower hinge frequency for the filtering, poorer transient response, lack of stability with diverse loads, etc... tend to produce high frequency roll-off and in-band phase shifts at frequencies that are closer to mid-band reproduction.

My guess is that you personally know all of this, so we are pretty much discussing this for the edification of those that aren't as familiar with such things. : ) Sean
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