Pure class A amplifiers = "slow" amplifiers?

Guidocorona...Believe it or not audio can be speeded up without the tonal change that results from overspeeded playback...but no using a simple amplifier. It takes some digital processing.

It is a fact that our sense of hearing can recieve and understand speech faster than our tongues can wag. Alarm messages, for example to airplane pilots, can be speeded up.

"Speed" or more properly "rise time" should never be a problem for audio amps. After all, both tubes and transistors are used at radio frequencies.

The bug-a-boo about A/B amps is crossover distortion where, as the waveform crosses zero and changes polarity, one output transistor turns off and the other turns on. The very first transistor power amps caused distortion of the waveform as this happened. It was largely responsible for their poor sound quality. Once this effect was recognized designers have taken pains to minimize crossover distortion. Not all A/B amps are created equal. Good ones exhibit little or no crossover distortion, although they may have other problems, most of which could affect class A amps also. However, crossover distortion is easy to understand, and is often cited in criticisms of A/B amps.

Johnk...Although Maggies aren't high efficiency speakers, they do have very small diaphragm excursion, and I believe this may be a lot of the reason they sound good. When I designed a cone driver subwoofer system to go with my Maggies a prime criteria was minimal cone excursion. What happens to the typical subwoofer cone is obscene!! I ended up with three subwoofer systems, for my three front channels, each including a 15" driver and a 12" driver. I get very strong bass with quite modest cone excursion.

Johnk...Fostex 31.5 = cone area!
Also, Fostex 31.5 = $2535.75
as of April 07. Probably more now.