From Krell to McIntosh - Anyone?

Since I have never owned either, take this with the appropriate amount of salt. First of all, I don't think either of these manufacturer's gear necessarily conforms to a house sound. Mac works with both tubes and solid state. I will grant you that perhaps Mac's rather unique use of output transformers on some of their ss gear may negate what might otherwise be percieved as an automatic presumed difference. IMHO, Krell's gear has not maintained a house sound either. To my ears their home theatre, intergrated and class AB gear is significantly inferior to their pure class A stuff, and some of their gear, even in within their class A range, have obvious differences. FWIW, the better Krell stuff is amongst the best I've ever heard and I find the sound of most Macs neither attractive nor repulsive (most of the Mac gear certainly has a classic visual beauty though) .

I think it is very hard to pick one or the other unless you have owned both.I now have McIntosh amps both ss&Tube and love both.The Krell that I deoed was with Martin Logan Speakers,The sound was detailed but what I would call bright or harsh.Who is to say with other speakers and in another room I would have loved it.When I demed Mac I liked what I heard and bought a MC275 IV and latter a very nice used MC2500.Krell has been around for awhile but not near as long as McIntosh.Then there is the resale value as the origianl poster stated.Also customer service,McIntosh has parts for products that are long out of production.I called Mac customer service just the other day and even though it was five minuets till quitting time,the girl talked to me for half an hour and was so nice.Try that with any other big name brand and report your findings.This is one reason I will always own Mcintosh.But I won't say that Krell is a bad brand just because I like Mac.I do know if you live by a good mac dealer they will do a home demo.You can call or email the factory and they will help set one up.

I've recently owned the Mc 501's wt the C46 into my Dyn C4's...almost tubelike in the sense it had haze galore. It was also sterile sounding. My Krell mono's and KCT with the EVO 505 front end is quite exciting and full of color and dynamics! The Oracle cabling doesn't hurt either.

can't say i've heard krell in my system, but dave_b seems to have nailed the mac sound (though i'd disagree about "sterile"). see my review on dagogo.com for more on the 501s, but i can only imagine the krell will do far more at the extremes and has the potential for greater absolute performance, but will sound inferior w/ poor sources or speakers.

Well I read your review Rhyno and try as I may I can find no haze in my playback system, analog or digital with the 501's in my system. I can't speak for the rest of Dave b's chain or yours for that matter, I assume your virtual system is what you used in your review. In my system which includes Meridian, Basis/rega/blackbird, ARC ph 5, cj premier 14, Thiel 3.6 and MIT 350 EVO and 350 reference, there is no haze to be found...at least to my ears.