My Pass XA25 gets warm. I could not say it gets hot. Even when left on several days. Pure class A 25wpc. More than enough power for the Zu speaker.
I would be wanting to try a tube SET amplifier if I owned those speakers.
How hot is hot when moving from class a/b to to a or tubes?
I am considering moving from a class a/b Luxman L509x to a class a or tube amp.
I have never owned a class a or tube amp, so have no experience of living with one. My kids are hopefully old enough and wise enough not to burn themselves, but I do live in an already warm house with bifold doors leading to a south facing garden. There is no escaping the sun, despite having uv treated glass.
My room is roughly 9 meters by 12 open planed living space. Equipment is, Luxman L-509x integrated, Zu union 6 supreme, 99db sensitivity (this is why I am considering a lower powered tube I can barely turn the Luxman up) music is played roughly 6 hours a day, more on weekends
who here has moved from class a/b and d to class a with or without tubes. What were the differences of things like:
warming up time
additional heat to the home
Running in summer time
additional cost to run
any considerations I should make before purchasing something. I will try in my home, but will need to free up funds
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Wonderfully efficient speakers with the Zu. I have efficient speakers that I run and have been running a Decware SE34I. The 6 watts/channel is more than adequate. This runs a pentode tube, the EL34, as a single ended triode. You will notice a few things about Decware right away. First and foremost, you can talk to their creator Steve Deckart about any concerns and what you are trying to accomplish. They are hardly ever available on the secondary market. I believe people buy and keep. That is certainly my plan. Another nasty aspect is you are going to be waiting about a year, if you order. As to heat, there is some but not a furnace. As to longevity tube amps and their assembly are almost always fixable. I have a Dynaco ST-70 that is from the early 60's. The Dynaco does run warmer than the Decware and the Dynaco has a cage cover. I have had the Dynaco recapped once and new tubes probably 4-5 times. I do have to bias the Dynaco occasionally but the Decware is self biasing. I also have a Audio Research amp that requires biasing. Self biasing is nice. You can also get into the fun habit of tube rolling. It does take some time to warm up. It sounds good, and is ready to go about 2 minutes after fire up but gets to sounding better after a 1/2 hour or so. That said, I have an old Threshold Cas2 amp, solid state, that takes an hour or more to find true sweetness. |
@hoosierinohio ive been looking at the decwear stuff. Looks really nice and reviews well. |
@erikt - I have never thought of the cross over point from a-b. I wasn’t sure how class a/b worked. I thought it was it’s own class. Given what you said there will be no way I am leaving class a. 60-80db as top listening volume. |
My last pure class A speaker amplifier was a 1987 Classe Audio DR3 VHC. It was designed by David Reich (hence the DR prefix). The VHC stood for very high current. The amplifier was a work of art that weighed in at just over 100 pounds. It cost close to $5000 in 1987 dollars and ran extremely hot. You could fry an egg on its dual transformer case. It also sounded great. However, forget about using it during the summertime though, as the heat put out by the DR3 VHC could drive you out of your listening room. I also have a pure class A Schiit Asgard 2 that I use to drive my planar magnetic headphones. While it’s built to a much less expensive standard, it also runs quite hot. It tends to be a finicky amplifier yet, with my inexpensive planars (Fostex T60RP and Hifiman H4XX) it sounds quite good. I do believe that pure class A (as opposed to sliding Class A) does sound better than class AB amplification. Just be aware of the heat put out by these amplifiers as well as their inefficiency. 😀
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