skipping all the mish-mosh of the last 3 pages of posts....if using AM, we've found that 'X' carrier watts and 'Y' swing watts from transistors BEATS 'X' carrier watts & 'Z' swing watts from the mosfet amps OR radios.
under 'controlled' testing, which honestly was not much more then a 'keydown party', we found that keying 15 watts from an S3 & swinging 40 from a transistor type vs swinging 75 from a mosfet type, the transistor type won hands down. yeah, the mosfet type was considered an 'audio monster' and 'swing machine' by the radio geeks, HOWEVER, we all know that 'swing' on AM stops producing usefullness at some point and this 'taste test' showed that all the impressiveness of peak-reading-wattmeter-movement, violently swinging from 1 side to the other, was USELESS and the more refined transitors won the battle. the same result was found with a ts dx250-NOT EVEN A CLASS 'C' AMP!-vs an 8 (i think) mosfet amp. 40 watts carrier from both, 150 pep from the ts & well over 250 from the mosfet box & again the transistor amp proved 'stronger'. as for audio machine....i didn't really think either radio (or amp-aided radio) was louder then the other, regardless of whether it was using transistors, mosfets or any combination of both.
on SSB.....using 2 stock hr2510's, the dx250 again beat out the 8 mosfet amplifier.
does this mean mosfet amps are worthless? not at all. less generated heat was a plus, cheaper replacement parts, etc...but why does the mosfet version using far cheaper parts cost more then the transistor version?