User talk:Kscience

To say the Vox AC30 is not a Class A amp is to simplify; let me describe how, and why, this is. This will include practical production tradeoffs due to cost, the standards used at the time and today still, as well as simple cultural differences.

Jennings could have made a Vox "AC30RMS" had he used EL34's; they were more than twice as expensive as EL84's of the day. Cost and size are always touchy subjects in Production; if it were not for bean counters, it would be a different world today. Given the maximum plate dissipation of the cheaper EL84's, he should have called it an AC21; that said, it IS a class A amp over the majority of its power output. He did not call it an AC30RMS, however; Consider the British also had Whitworth Wrenches.

Back then there were a few British amplifier builders who respected the High Fidelity standards agreed to by the IEEE and other engineering organizations; Williamson, Pass, and a few others lived and died maintaining these. As did, in this country, companies like Crown International. Today, we see Crown, and almost every other manufacturer, promote power output numbers that are "Peak", "Program", or other non RMS values; While this is questionable, it is legal.

As it was for Jennings to call a Class A 21 watt musical instrument amplifier, an A Class 30. MI amps are not known for being high fidelity! Frankly they shouldn't be; High Fidelity amps are designed for material that has been compressed and limited for recording and broadcast. Live performance will get treated that way later, after the fact, should it be used as such.

Kscience (talk) 03:16, 27 February 2012 (UTC)