The End Of Big Iron?

I think there was an escalating contest among "big iron" manufacturers of the day. Consumers tend to latch onto categorical assets, real or otherwise, and when makers get that scent they run with it. In the case of the amps in question, momentum carried them well beyond anything sane or useful before common sense among consumers signaled a cease and desist to Krell and their competitors.

As an aside, does anyone else think that Krell looked like what the army would create if they were designing amplifiers.

Maybe Krell and Pass gave up the Wattage Wars when this fella came along:

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/1011/boulder_3050_monoblocks.htm

If "big iron" has gone out of fashion, it seems that McIntosh and Musical Fidelity haven't heard about it.

@Mapman, it's interesting that you mention not going back from Class D, including to tube amps.

In addition to the Peachtree Grand, I have an ARC VSi55 that I run in the winter when the heat isn't an issue here in AZ, and I swap them out between my two rooms just for fun. I consider the ARC to be a nice amp, nice sound, nothing to sneeze at. And we've done just casual A/B tests between the Peachtree and the ARC, and at measured equal sound levels I honestly can't tell them apart. They sound equally enjoyable, except that the Peachtree can play much louder effortlessly. Which sort of highlights how far Class D has come...you get tons of power, in a nice footprint, low weight, without all the heat, and at least in my case it just happens to sound as sweet and balanced as my Audio Research tube amp.