Dude, first up it is best practice to say what speakers you are running. This is because Class A is spectacularly inefficient that this becomes highly relevant. (I run Pass X150.8). Two really fabulously options: Perreaux - these are stonkingly good somehow manage to produce less heat that Pass. Second is Plinius. Again every benefit of Class A but have a cool (and I really mean 'cool') trick. You can adjust the bias so that you have a high and a medium class A bias. Watching movies - low bias. Critical listening - High bias. Actually I should mention Pure Audio (thb, not heard in person, but same designer as Plinius). This has all the advantages Plinius but a fabulous design aesthetic. One more option: ATC. A tiny smidge less than Pass but an uncorresponding tiny price.
Recommend me a Class A Integrated Amp (or sound like Class A amp)
I have been rocking a Cabasse Riga setup with a Sony TA-A1ES (a heavily biased Class A design outputting first 15 watts as Class A). I absolutely love the clarity and natural sound of it. I’ve decided to keep to Class A to upgrade if possible because the Riga does not need a lot of juice to drive.
Accuphase Class As are eye-watering expensive in my country, but thankfully Esoteric prices their Class A F-03A at much more reasonable $8600 USD. Luxman unfortunately has stopped producing Class As, so they are out of equation and besides strangely they are more expensive than Esoteric in my country. Pass Labs, well, way out of my budget.
So, for around $8600 USD or less what are my other options if I want a similar sound to Class A without going down the tube route?
I’ve heard the new HifiRose RA180 sounds quite class A like. And I think the Yamaha AS series sound quite close as well. Any more options should I consider? The pricing of other brands should be similar to US.
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- 51 posts total
Dude, first up it is best practice to say what speakers you are running. This is because Class A is spectacularly inefficient that this becomes highly relevant. (I run Pass X150.8). Two really fabulously options: Perreaux - these are stonkingly good somehow manage to produce less heat that Pass. Second is Plinius. Again every benefit of Class A but have a cool (and I really mean 'cool') trick. You can adjust the bias so that you have a high and a medium class A bias. Watching movies - low bias. Critical listening - High bias. Actually I should mention Pure Audio (thb, not heard in person, but same designer as Plinius). This has all the advantages Plinius but a fabulous design aesthetic. One more option: ATC. A tiny smidge less than Pass but an uncorresponding tiny price. |
@andrei_nz , uh, I literally said that my speakers are Cabasse Riga on the first line of my post. Understandable though, when I went to the dealers and I mentioned about my speakers most did just go "ummm, what are those?" until I explained that it's a pair of high-end spherical coaxial satellites. As I mentioned earlier, they are very easy to drive therefore I feel safe to limit my option to only Class As. Plinius is definitely on my short list. For Perreaux, only 80i is available to purchase in my city. |
If you live in Singapore, you could visit Robert Lai from SG Live Acoustics https://sgliveacoustics.com/. He sells Line Magnetic wich is an excellent brand of tube amps and cheaper than your budget in some models. Maybe he can show you how good class A tube amps sound like I have a Line Magnetic LM 508 with upgraded tubes and it’s a musical monster. I agree with someone up here in the thread, good tube amps with good tubes give a sound I can’t find in solid state, even at very high prices. |
- 51 posts total