Thank you, in the back of my mind I was thinking the same dealing with dust. You gave me food for thought in regards to setup/location.I might add that having a fan blowing into/towards the unit will tend to concentrate dust into it, making cleaning of the amp to remove dust buildup more frequently needed. That's in addition to any noise it may add while running.
Most Sansui receivers and amps were quite well equipped as far as heat sinks go. The few models that kicked enough sonic a$$ to need active cooling (fans) in addition were factory equipped with such. To my knowledge, only the BA-5000, B-1, G-22000/33000, and 9900Z were so equipped. Can't speak to the later model hi-end models like the B-2301, so there may have been a few more I'm unfamiliar with.
Key thing is to provide a proper environment for it. Crammed into a tight cabinet or stacked under a bunch of other gear will not provide the passive cooling needed, so design your setup around a shelf of entertainment center that permits for decent air flow without the need for fans.
Just my thoughts, a fan may help keep it cooler but there are tradeoffs to consider in using one.
Good point! exhaust the built up heat.Maybe consider a laptop cooling fan. The unit I have houses 5 small fans driven by USB, unit is 15mm thickness. Either place the fan unit
on top of the amp (ie draw mode) or sit the amp on top, (blow mode). Don't understand what positioning is better and why. Always thought
it was "relatively" the same, ie, the air moves at about the same rate.
With respect, I disagree, if extra cooling is used, it is certainly not going to hurt anything, amplifiers have regulated supplies with Pass transistors which are pretty much fully turned on all the time, producing a lot of heat in certain areas. You do not necessarily have to be running an amplifier at full power for it to be producing huge amounts of heat in the regulated supplies.IMHO--consumer gear (unless already equipped with a fan--some are), there should be no need for a fan, unless the gear is improperly spaced/ventilated to start with (in your rack). Most pro gear incorporates a fan in the design, because they are designed to be mounted and run hard in close quarters. If your consumer gear at home "needs" a supplementary fan, you are in one of two situations--you have it cramped for space/proper ventilation, or you are driving it beyond its intended design limits--essentially using external cooling to "override" the built-in thermal protection. Just because you can keep it "cool enough" to not engage the thermal protection circuits, does not mean that you are not "over-driving" the unit. It will eventually shut down or blow up, either way--just depends on what type(s) of protection circuits/methods are involved.
if extra cooling is used, it is certainly not going to hurt anything
We are not talking about class A amplifiers here in the Sansui forum, and in most cases in the amplifiers we are talking about, there are areas particularly in the regulated supplies where there is excessive heat.I don't necessarily agree with this. My Krell amps (pure class A) run extremely hot--on purpose, and don't sound as good on cold-start as they do when you've had them on for an hour and can cook eggs on the heat sinks. Tubes have heaters for a reason--they need to maintain a certain temperature to operate most efficiently.
I agree that excessive heat is the "enemy" of all electronics, but I don't know of a single manufacturer that would intentionally send to market a unit that (if properly housed) would exceed the maximum operating temperatures of the components used in the build. UL and the FTC have their own specs for that.
From the net:
https://standardscatalog.ul.com/standards/en/standard_1492_2
"The FTC requires that the amplifier be pre-conditioned at one-eighth of rated total power output (for a multiple-output system, all channels are on) for one hour using a sine wave at a frequency of 1,000 Hz.
The power spectrum measurement is then collected with two channels at maximum rated power over the audio frequency range of 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, in ambient still air of not less than 25°C, for the a duration of not less than 5 minutes."