MC402 vs FPB 300cx

Sure thing!

I have two other audio buddies here in town and one way we can track down what we are actually hearing is to swap gear and hear it in each other's systems. This is a great way to figure out what is good and what isn't - and to double check our feelings about them. Knowing this information is about the only way to truly assess what you actually have. If you have some friends you could do that with, you would find it extremely enlightening.

With all do respect to your KAV, the 400cx and MC402 are quite a step up. Unless you know for a fact that the rest of your gear is on par with these amps, you will never hear what the amps actually sound like. Only when the rest of the system is "better" than those amps will you be able to judge them accurately. This makes setting up a great system (for the money) a challenging task to say the least! It never seems clear what you are listening to. This is also why Audiogon is so popular for buying and selling - it is easy to make mistakes and end up in a never-ending merry-go-round of equipment changes by trying to hit what is essentially a moving target.

My solution to all this is to make all my upgrades in little baby steps and for each one, I try a range of power cords and interconnects to rule cables out of the equation and be able to triangulate to a final judgement before moving on (in addition to testing in others' setups). I also try to upgrade a little of everything as I go to avoid showing up the rest of my system with one big upgrade.

Oh, and since I used to be an N804 owner, I can say that those speakers reveal EVERYTHING. The 803 will be less revealing because their meatier bass will mask some of the ultimate resolution the 804's have. Lean bass definately accentuates system issues. It could be that when you go to 803s, your problems will "disappear" and your new amp will be perfect. I have also witnessed this effect first hand.

But it is great that you are looking at the rest of your gear first. This is the next best step IMO. Good luck, have fun, and try to keep your sanity in the process. :)

Arthur

Aball, Cosecant resolved about 80% of the sibilance I was experiencing. I am at a loss for words with the sound of this thing.

I am thinking the small remaining glare I might get could easily be resolved by a tweak.

Jc51373, so have you tried what Krell suggested?

Hi Jc,

I am glad you found the cause of the sibilance in your front end. The experience you had with the Mac MC-402 demo (bright, glaring, sibilant) was puzzling to those of use with this amp. When we change a component in the chain, we tend to look for the obvious cause and effect. In this case, the amp seemed to be the culprit. Your evaluation of the Mac may have been tainted due to another component in your system. Good luck with the new Krell amp.

Nwavesailor, I hear you...But I stand behind most of what I said about the Mac though. At the risk of this topic coming up again, the MC402 still sounded slow, etched, not smooth, predictable, no emotion and so on-in my system...I got a very good picture for the sonic signature of that amp regardless, and it just wasn't for me. Conversely, this Krell does everything I wanted it to outside of the sibilance I experienced before Cosecant, which I do believe I can resolve the small amount I have now.

At this point though you are right, in terms of the glare side-effect I experienced with the MAC, it most likely was my front end at the time.