Krell 400xi vs. BAT VK-300x vs. McIntosh MA6900

The krell 400xi is killer good when broken in and cabled properly...mate it to a 6-8ohm speaker of musical heritage and it don't much better at any price, including my former $40K evo rig!! Mcintosh' just doesn't get out of the way of the music...it inflicts a significant signature over the sound. A signature that is not anywhere near state of the art! Martin Colloms would tend to agree since he pulls no punches either. My Mcintosh 501's and C46 were very old school sound...the tube pre was even worse. The parts from the 1960's for heavens sake..anyway, enjoy!!

The Krell 400xi would be ok with smooth, laid-back speakers (usually with soft dome tweeters), like Spendor or Sonus Faber. Not even the ProAcs would sound good with it. If you use metal dome tweeters, you'll notice tilted-up high frequencies, which sounds like more detailed but induces listener's fatigue. Besides, according to Stereophile's test report, the heat sinks are undersized (if you play it loud), but I guess it's fine for normal listening. BAT doesn't have the typical "tube" sound, more analytical than smooth. Even the Integra (designed by BAT) home theater pre and multi-channel power sounds smoother. I like the MA6900, since I like to enjoy my music rather than chasing the absolute truth in recordings. Every piece of conductor in the path of music signals has a signature, even the electrical outlet in the wall (eventually I chose the FIM outlet for its warm sound). So my opinion is, choose the sound that you enjoy most, i.e. the amp that creates the most endorphin in your brain.

Whokc,

I'm currently using Aerial Acoustic 5's which dont use soft dome tweeters, the mid range is liquid with the Krell 400xi. Mind you I'm using a very good digital front end. I don't think its fair to make such generic comparisons.

I recently purchased a 400xi and find it to be sweet sounding with SACD (sony 9000es, recently sold on agon) but the subjectively tilted up treble on redbook is having me scrambling for a cdp upgrade. I have an sacd standard on the way (2nd version). Interconnects are Cardas Golden ref, speakers paradigm studio 20 v.2 (weakest link, i know)

I now have the 400xi hooked up to a Musical Fidelity A5 tube CD player and Krell Resolution 2 speakers. My interconnect and speaker cables are MIT Oracle V2.1, my power cords are Transparent powerlink MM. Very dynamic and lifelike sound..neutral but engaging with great extension. Compared to my previous Evo rig the highs are so much better..sweet, clear and smooth with tremendous sparkle and no dryness or harshness. I predict a re-tooling of the krell evo amp's in the near future..maybe even the preamps as well..something is wrong with the new house sound and I think it's the fact that they are not class A anymore!!