How hot is too hot?

Well, now I have my answer; the amp was getting too hot. It's back from the repair guy, recapped, both bias pots replaced.
Driving Maggies hard it gets very warm. And that's it.
Sounds sweet, too. Like a Stereo 70 with the balls to push Maggies to earschplittenloudenboomer levels. With tighter bass.
 
If you want to go cheap, a laptop cooling pad works, I found one for $4 at a thrift store. Make sure it has the plug you want, some are standard outlet and some have a USB plug, I think. The one I found has the standard plug, I plug it into the back of a unit that gets hot. Place it on top over the vents.

I've been using one of these in my home theater system. It's actually plugged into a Harmon Kardon AVR 80II that I use to power the center and surrounds because the Denon AVR-X3300W that I use as the preamp and for the stereo speakers doesn't have an outlet.

I would suggest moving the cooling pad off the amp after use to free up the cooling vents unless you can put a timer on the fan to continue the cooling.

Incidentally, the Denon get rather warm but not hot while the HK get barely warm.
 
You can get laser handheld thermometers now for peanuts and that will give you an objective measurement.

There are rules of thumb for acceptable temperatures for healthy AB amplifiers and also Class A amps, which tend to run hotter.

Output devices usually have a max temperature rating, and the size of the heatsink is calculated to achieve the proper thermal heat dissipation. If something is wrong then yes, you will need to try to find the cause. Generally if there is an problem then one channel will run hotter than the other - as an indicator that something is actually wrong.

Aporoximately how much of a temperature discrepancy between channels is enough to indicate a problem? More than, say, five?
 
Aporoximately how much of a temperature discrepancy between channels is enough to indicate a problem? More than, say, five?
I only measured the temps with the palm of one hand. If it's noticeably hotter, the bias probably needs checked. The bias pot on the right channel of my Hafler didn't work at all, so the tech guy replaced both pots and adjusted bias.
The amp still gets very warm but not hot. One of my cats wants to sleep on it while it's working, if that's any help.
 
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