If you have a small-ish or even medium sized room (10x10 up to 14x17) tube gear or class A SS will heat up the room at least 5*F to as much as 15* or more... I've been over to a fellow AC member's house with a Cary tube amp... wearing shorts and a t-shirt is a prerequisite because it's so hot in that little room. There are others here on AC that have a 'winter amp' and a 'summer amp' for this reason.
The EL34's w/ lower wattage aren't bad... and in a medium to large room won't heat the room much... but ...
Good point, Carlman, you beat me to it.
Solid state amps, even those made to run with higher bias currents than the norm (this typically but not exclusively being 20...45 mA per trannie in Japanese amps and 35...65 mA per trannie in European amps), will also heat up the place.
My own designs use no less than 150 mA per output device; there being four pairs, the overall quiescent current is 600 mA, which, at +/-50V rails, means the output devices pairs are dissipating around 10 watts each, or around 40 watts overall. Although I use rather massive heat sinks, after about 30 minutes, they reach a healthy temperature, warm to touch. If I should increase the bias current, the "warm to touch" becomes a little hot.
Not quite what the glass tubes do, but not too far removed either.
Cheers,
DVV
