Which version are you using, IXYS or the A1968? Personally I'd only do this on the Sanyo part... As for how much current, until there is smoke.
You can also tweak the offset series resistor to give you more range.
Yes but it isn't true as you can do much better matching than the factory job and link the two dies thermally. This guys claim was more than there were still plenty of P-fets to be found in duals as he was able to get some.
I'm a bit amazed you could read that thread. The guy is a bit of a case but in a nutshell he wants a separate PSU for the low voltage section (which draws almost no power) but not for the high voltage (which draws all of the power), less feedback and bigger caps. He also calls the amps cheap in terms of build quality and shames Stax for using single transistors matched into pairs. The guy has clearly never built anything as a product or indeed lives in the real world.
The heat aspect is hard to judge, way too many variables but dust inside the unit can also be a factor. It the amp is one of the first built then you can be running into cap problems given the super simple power supplies.
Hey!!! I just got home from work...
400V isn't enough for any serious amp. I have some 3900uf/550V caps here somewhere and some 3*110uf/630V film caps. Two of them are the size of that 717...
All the grounds on the Alpha PCB are connected to the ground plane so everything is shared. If you ground the inputs directly into the PSU then one wire to the pot is all you need.
All Stax Pro bias sets will handle 1200Vp-p in an ideal world but humidity is a huge factor.
I read somewhere back in the day that the bias was 200V so you could be close to it. Low bias with high voltage swings on the stators is certainly one way of doing it...
We have no clear idea why the transformer has extra taps or even what Sony were doing with this design. The Sony transformers have very high ratio so 14Vp-p might be enough to drive them to arcing.
Given how many fans Luther has here, I thought you'd like this...
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/a482514/luther-to-return-to-bbc-one-this-summer-first-series-3-picture.html