Krell Duo 300 compared to Evo 302e or 402e?

Your Magico S5 have beryllium dome tweeters, which are NOT metal dome. They will be very high resolution, but will not have the harsh breakup of normal metal domes, so I wouldn’t worry about this. As I said, make sure all your cables have gold-plated (or rhodium plated) terminations (spades, plugs, RCA, XLR). The only thing I would really look at is your Nordost power cable. I don’t know the configuration on your Heimdall 2, but Nordost likes to use larger 16awg solid-core conductors and uses silver-plating to increase higher resolution voltage draws. If things are a little harsh with the Krell/Classe, I would look at replacing this cable first.

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The Classe vs Krell is a hard question. They are close. The Classe is very clean sounding and, If I had to nitpick, I -think- the Classe might be more accurate to the input signal. However, I have been somewhat of a Krell fanboy since 2005 when I first got my Krell HTS home theater processor. When I was ready to upgrade, I went through and tried several different processors, but I kept coming back to the Krell and finally just upgraded to Krell S1200U. There’s something about the Krell "discrete Class A" analog and driver stages that just "sing". There’s definitely a "magic" here, in my opinion. The Krell will have a lot of resolution and dynamics, and there will be no lack of "realism" that is common with warm or colored amps. Caphill may have a different opinion, as he owns and loves his Classe amps.

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Few more details. The Classe is fan cooled, so there might be a little fan noise. Classe are 89 lb monoblocks and are smaller which may be easier to move/handle? CT-M600 can be at most 8 years old.
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Krell 402e is very big and heavy at 135lbs. It can be as old as 11 years. If you are looking at power cords, the Krell requires a special C19 IEC 20A connector on the amplifier power cord socket. I recommend the Furutech rhodium variations (FI-32(R) / FI-52(R) / FI-52NCF). I actually have a couple of FI-52 connectors that I plan to put up for sale for $199 each.

Great info - thanks so much!

I thought berrillyium was a type of metal so that shows what I know... lol 


As I think I mentioned I changed my preamp from Mark Levinson No.326s to Simaudio Moon Evolution P-8 and honestly I can’t believe how much of an upgrade it was. I guess it’s not a real fair match up for ML $10k and Sim $16k but everything got so much better. I’m so happy with this change.

I also switched my audio server and that was another huge upgrade. I went from a custom built mini fanless LPS powered windows based PC that feeds the Ethernet Network Player in my Bricasti M1SE to a non windows linex based Audio only server that is power by the excellent Uptone Audio JS-2 LPS - plugged into a PS Audio P10 and this new server is super low power - it’s processer only uses 10watts it’s a 12w sever and this is another gigantic upgrade that I’m super happy with. 

Im really into some of the very best sound I’ve ever had in my life and I’ve been at it for a while. 

I’d like to pick up 3 more Kubala-Sosna Emotion PC’s so my entire cable loom will be completely Kubala-Sosna Emotion cabling and yes that makes sense to remove the Nordost.

I think my weak link if you could call it that is my Pass amp. It’s not a weak link per say but I’d like to get an amp to push along the resolution and dynamics.

Weight and all that is fine I’m after the highest resolution, most dynamics and the more musical amp with overall best sound. My gut says it’s the Krell. The Krell cost a lot more new - not that matters but they seemed to have more cost no object funds to put into it. 

Heh, I gues beryllium is metal - I had to google it.  Most metal dome tweeters are made from aluminum or titanium or maybe even magnesium.  These all have rather low frequencies where they flex/resonate and breakup (such as somewhere between 20khz and 22khz.  Sometimes you can raise the resonance frequency as high as 28khz with something like a ceramic coating.  However, these will still be in the range where it will affect brightness/harshness of the natural highs between 10khz and 20khz. 

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The Beryllium tweeter will not resonate or breakup until somewhere in the 44khz to 48khz area, so you really won't hear any breakup/harshness with these.  Diamond tweeters resonate even higher, at somewhere around 75-78khz.

Get the Krell Duo!

Thanks 
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dave_b2,177 posts

I pulled the trigger on a new amp but went in another direction. Excited and nervous as you never really know until you put in your system and listen in your room. Should have later next week. I had an opportunity to get a great offer on a pair of:

GamuT M250i Mono Blocks Amps

http://www.gamutaudio.com/amplifiers/m250i/