Whats the krell sound?

i had an fpb-300 amp that
1. worked perfectly/looked great
2. threw a big 3d stage
3. sounded quite good, except that compared to a pass aleph amp, had a slight silvery top end, not unpleasant in any way, but wasn't as transparent as the pass. otoh, the pass amp had softer bass. also, the krell was $8k, the pass (1.2's)
were $14k. halcro's get out of the way even more, but lack "body", which i ultimately prefer.

Mitch

I use an Audioprism Mantissa tube pre with my Krell ksa-250. Wonderfull combo in my system.

Dave

I have owned a number of pieces of Krell over the last five years. I just sold an FPB 200 and have an FPB 700cx coming (hopefully today). The 200 never sounded bright. I would argue that any overly bright sounding amp is a result of a poor quality room. No one designs a piece of gear to sound bright.

Krell gear can be analytical, but that is more an attribute of their pre-amps than their amps.

My FPB 200 was not bright in the highs (in my room the highs were a little rolled off, but that was in my room), but at the same time I would not consider the mids to be 'liquid.' It offered a good, smooth midrange, but not to the point of being liquid. The bass was tight, and well defined, which very few tube amps, or SS for that matter are capable of doing.

The strong points of the Krell amps (Mostly the newer amps which are actually biased into class A to their full rated power) are their well defined bass and the large, detailed soundstage. Those are not the only positive aspects of Krell amps, but those are the ones that stand out most prominantly. They are capable (with good clean power) of bringing sound from a deep dark soundstage.

I have compared the Krell to similarly rated SS and tube amps, and the Krell does it better than the other amps I have heard. I have not heard anywhere near everything out there, but IMO the Krell does not have a strong, pronounced sound of their own. They have good control over what is supplied to them. Look upstream for the sound.

The only Krell I have heard was through a set of B&W 800's.

I don't remember them sound that bright. Could of been though.
What I do remember was they sounded really TUBBY on the bottom end.

They may not sound like this now, as the gear I was listeng to was 10-15 years old.

Do yourself a favor and buy a Bryston or Sim Audio.

Cheers,
Nick

Thanks for all the feedback. Im closing in on a used KAV 250A.
Ive been reading up on RCA vs XLR. Can anyone tell me if that am is truly balanced? Trying to determin if i should order some xlrs or new rcas. Im using a cary 303/200cdp for a direct source(im pretty suer its balanced.
thanks.