General Asylum: REVIEW: Krell KAV-300i Integrated Amplifier (SS) by Bruce Beckner

I bought this amp, unheard, used as part of a general upgrade of my system. I was looking for an integrated amp and, I confess, I have yet to be seduced by the magic of glowing bottles. (My first system in 1969 had a Dyna PAS-3x preamp and a Stereo 70. I confess when I replaced that combination with a solid state Dyna SCA-80, I thought my system sounded better.) I did audition an Audio Research CA-50 at a dealer, driving the loudspeakers that I eventually bought. I thought the CA-50 (45 wpch) sounded very nice, but was just barely adequate power for the Joseph audio RM-7 signature speakers that I was auditioning and was clearly inadequate for the Aerial 5s that the dealer also demoed. This was with symphonic music, not R&R.
Turning to the Krell: Sonically, the Krell is not euphonious. It has a very smooth midrange and an extended but not spitty or glary topend (unlike, say, an Adcom poweramp that I heard at a dealer demoing B&W 801s). (Yes, I know what solid state glare sounds like. My old late 70s Luxman receiver has it.) Of course, there's the famous "iron grip" Krell bass, which really does exist and is noticeable through the subwoofer, even though it is powered from its own amp, driven by the Krell's preamp outputs. Operation has been flawless and silent. There are three unbalanced inputs, one balanced input and a tape loop. There is no "main amp" input, so the preamp and poweramp cannot be separated electrically, thus precluding, for example, the use of a high-level crossover in a subwoofer amplifier to roll of the bass feeding the main speakers. (There is a preamp output, so you could drive a second poweramp, if you wished.)The remote is, frankly, cheesy. It is big and uses membrane swtiches to control all functions. The amp itself runs fairly warm and uses its entire, heavy, metal chassis as a heat sink, generating a fair amount of heat, even at idle.
With this amp in place, what you feed it and what you drive it with is what you hear -- for good or ill. Unpleasant sounding, older CDs sound unpleasant. Better recorded, newer CDs sound good. HDCD CD's sound good. Vinyl (through an outboard phono stage) sounds good if it is good (I have a late 60s DGG recording of Also Sprach Zarathustra that's practically unlistenable; but a mid 70s two record set of Van Morrison live sounds fabulous (you can hear the difference between the cuts made at the Hollywood Bowl and those made in a club).) Speakers with a peaky top end sound peaky (Paradigm Minimonitors). For people with real world budgets and who have real-world restrictions on how much space can be devoted to audio, I think this is an excellent value. For the kinds of speakers that most people buy, this is plenty of power. IMHO, 50 watts, even 50 "tube watts" is not. Yes, there are a number of speakers that produce 90 dB from one watt that would be happy with 50 watts. But they either have severely compromised bass (i.e. a roll-off at 50 Hz) or are quite large (see Klipschorns). You cannot buy 100 tube watts/channel for anything close to the price of this amp.

REVIEW: Krell KAV-300i Integrated Amplifier (SS) Review by Bruce Beckner at Audio Asylum