B&W 801 s 3 or????

Jond
Any suggestions on tube preamps, to use with a big SS (fpb400cx) amp?

Steveaudio - trying to keep it under 5K.

thanks

paul

Paul,
I would suggest a Supratek Chenin, formerly called the Syrah. There is a thread on this site called "Preamp Deal of the Century" that will tell you all about it. I just picked up the Syrah and I now feel I'm set in the preamp department for a long time. Best of all it costs $2900 new and you can sometimes find them on here used, I picked mine up for $2500. Good luck hunting, it's a very fun process!

In my experience I own mostly Krell amps with two systems. One with MBL 111 speakers that with the Krell FPB amps is an incredible sound unequaled by any system Ive ever heard at any price to be honest and a home theater set-up centered around B&W 802/3 speakers and again krell amps. I have to say here in California the power is my biggest problem with the Krells from the wall socket it's about 125 to 129 volts TO HIGH, the Krells become magical at about 118 volts, more voltage they will sound dry and analytical. I use several PS 1200s w/220 input 118V output to drive the mono Krell FPB350s and 450s and the sound is amazing I know they are regulated but it is a dramtic differance. NO hash, incredible dynamics, silent background and resolution that has to be heard to be beleaved. Once you get this far then tune the room not the amps to meet your needs. Just my thoughts. Rob

OK, one of the FPB750MCX amps has failed and was drawing in excess of 15 amps from the wall at idle so I boxed them up for repair. I sold all my extra amps so now for this system the only extra amp I have lying around was a S300i. I set the little amp up in theater pass through mode for the mean time, and set up the 801N's again, it dosn't sound too bad when you bypass the preamp, the preamp is the real weakness of the S300i. Well ok, listened to a little led Zeppelin then some Michael Jackson from the this is it blue ray, turned my trusty Krell preamp up to about 50%, after about 4-5 minutes the amp went into thermal overload which it stated nicely on the display. Once it cooled off it shut itself off I turned it back on and it played fine. I could see from the P-1200 it's hooked to it was drawing a lot of power for a little amp. Can't wait to get my babies back.

On another note I spoke with Dan Daugustino a fare amount when he was here at the show in SF recently, he said the Krell amps should be running at 220 volts and they will sound a lot better. Come to find out they are all designed originally for that voltage, the MRA amps were designed to only run at 220. So looks like I have to save some pennies and do some more work on the house here...

Have fun guys,

Rob