"Schizoid Man" wrote in message
...

"Margaret von B." wrote in message

The specs and ratings mean nothing as you have probably noticed by now.
(BTW, the Tim Martins of this world never will.) Get yourself a bona
fide
muscle amp like a Krell, McCormack, Parasound, newer McIntosh or
preferably Plinius. Even if you cannot afford it, you need to try one in
your system.

Plinius, McIntosh and Krell are all definitely out of my range. Moreover,
I'm not sure my Ikea A/V furniture has the wherewithal to support some 100
lb beast.

McCormack, I agree, are definitely pure class. But again, probably
overkill
for the application I had in mind. I did try the Parasound Halo A23.
Though
it is a very fine looking piece of equipment, to paraphrase one RAO poster
"blue lights are cool, but they don't necessarily sound good." I found it
quite soulless, dry and vacant.

If you then decide that it is exactly what was missing, hit the used
equipment listings and find something similar. I've been there myself.
One
simple test is that if it is very heavy and gets very hot it is also
going
to sound very good in your system.

You're kidding, right? Hotter is better????

Margaret is right. Cool running designs rely on Class AB operation, with
tricky bias schemes to linearize the transistors around the crossover point.
Hotter running amps run Class A at low power levels, gradually switching to
Class AB at higher levels. The result is much easier to linearize using
feedback.

Although there have been a few highly praised AB designs, the majority of
high quality amplifiers use A-AB, which results in considerable heat
generation at idle. You can identify these designs by the fact that they run
hot.

These amplifiers tend to be more costly as well, because they require both
larger heatsinks, and a larger power supply.