There seems to be some confusion about the bias / heat here....
- the Stratos usually runs about 5 - 10 degrees above room temperature, the Khartago 10 - 20 degrees.
- the reason why we ask all of you guys to measure the house voltage is so that I can set up the amps for absolute 100 % performance....this means that I set up the bias at the upper range, knowing that the amp doesn't get much above that envelope because I have the voltage measurements at hand...
- if I don't have the voltage info, then I usually set it up at 10 % less bias at 120.5 V, which seems to be the average in all of the thousands of measurements I received. This ensures a safety range if the actual voltage would exceed that 120.5 However, higher house voltage also means that the bias gets up....higher bias = more heat.... meaning that the actual bias in turn would get close to the maximum / optimum...however, if the voltage drops well below the 120.5 V, then the bias will also go down, making the amp less "rich and emotional", but will also result in stone cold operating temperatures........
However, that 10 % less bias also means that the performance of the amp is not at 100 % optimum, but safe.
Of course only higher bias = higher heat is concern-able, but the Sanken transistors take quite a beating before quitting......rule of thumb here is that if you can't touch the top of the Khartago or the heatsinks of the Stratos, then it needs rebiasing.....
Now, as to Joe / Disc4, he did measure the bias, and the amp is perfect....again, temps will come down some in the winter, and yes, ventilation is of some concern with the Khartagos, but a non-issue with the Stratos cases...
And nope, our amps aren't special in this regard, it's just that other companies don't tweak it out to the extreme as we do....and yes, every amp has to be biased, of course...and yes, bias changes the sound quality big time.