The "charactor" of pure Class A?


I have a pair of Clayton M300 in my set up for the next couple of months. Very nice.

I have to admit these are the first Class A amps I have spent any significant amount of time listening to and I am impressed.

My questions is, do Class A amps have a sonic signature of their own?

I like what I am listening to very much, but would like to be able to discern what might be a base class A sound against what Clatyon itself may bring to the sonic whole...

Comments?
jb8312

Showing 1 response by xiekitchen

Phasecorrect:
Yes many A/B amps still operate in class A up to the first 1 to 3 watts, and if you've ever watched an amplifier with power meters while the music plays you are usually amazed at how much of the time the meter hangs around 1 to 5 or so watts. It's the 20 db peaks that get us...
Not all "class A" amps are PURE class A, also. I had a 50 watt per channel class A Forte model 1a which I think is a good amp and sort of has the classic class A sound, also had the original Music Fidelity A1 25 watts per channel, the sound was a bit on the rich, warm full sound, not at all harsh, strident, thin, or analytical. I believe that is the sort of thing most would agree is the "Class A experience". I would imagine an extremely expensive pure class A amp like the big old Thresholds, Levinsons, Benini, Krell, etc. would give a better representation than my Forte 1a.