Primare I30 vs Krell KAV 400xi

400xi is head and shoulders above I30 in fit & finish department. Krells housing is all made of bent and milled aluminium. Primare has only aluminum front panel - the rest is steel, powder coated black or silver. Krell looks great from all sides - Primare only from the front.

Disclaimer - I have nothing agains Primare. In fact - I have a complete Primare system in my living room (amp/dvd/tuner). But If only Krell offered a tuner, I would switch to Krell at a hartbeat.

Krell 400xi wins hands down. Before faving purchased Krell integrated I had Primare I30 for two months. These are 3 major differences:
- Krell is able to drive evry kind of speaker if impedence don't fall below 2 ohms. Primare is much less powerful, a two-way mid-size floorstander Dynaudio Focus 220 is too diffcult for it.
- Krell offers very tight, fast, powerful bass. With Primare You have plenty of low bass but it's not so fast nor authoritative.
- the top end is fuller with Krell. But attention to marriage, if You match Krell with speakers that offer themselves too much highs, it may be a problem...

But Primare I30 is not a bad amplifier, especially for classical music.

I had a Krell 400Xi. It was very dynamic. It gives you everything that's there - from top to bottom. I had a little problem with the highs mainly because of bad recordings (compression, boost). The Krell is completely unforgiving in that regard. On a good recording, say, classical or acoustic it's unmatched and phenomenal IMO. I heard stuff I'd never heard in recordings I'd been listening to for 10~20 years. I finally couldn't deal with having only 20% of my recordings be listenable though. But it's quite the performer. I've always read it sounds great with the Krell CDP too. On build quality the Krell is unbelieveable. The local dealer dropped one on it's front left corner from waist high on to solid concrete. It chipped the concrete, barely marked the corner, and played perfectly when he hooked it back up. I saw that with my own eyes.

Eventually after going through another amp or two I went with McIntosh. More laid back and makes most of my recordings sound good. It's my cup of tea but not everyones.

I agree with Okocza, the match is very important.
I had the Krell 400xi with Maggie 1.6s. It was a good match - Nice and clean sound, no sign of the Krell running out of power.
I changed speakers to Martin Logan Ascent i. Not a good match for the Krell. The sound was very shallow, not full at all. I switched to the Primare I21 and all is well. I believe some retailers mated the Logans with Primare electronics and I can see why.

What about Sonus Faber Concertino Domus speakers pairing with Krell KAV 400xi, are they good match? I heard SF used Krell amp for testing.