Anthony H. Cordesman

I'll say one thing right off about the Infinity RS-1B: It sure looks as if you're getting your money's worth.

Some readers may feel that it is pushing poetic license beyond reasonable limits to call the Krell KSA-50 a "new-wave" amplifier. It has, after all, been around for several years. The Krell KSA-50 is new-wave enough, however, to be an incredibly stiff class-A design, rather than a pseudo–class-A circuit, and its 50 watts per channel are supported by enough of a power supply to drive an arc welder. You get about 70 watts of RMS power with 8 ohms, 150 watts with 4 ohms, and sufficient watts into 2 ohms to threaten my load resistors. There is almost enough power to drive a pair of Apogee Scintillas at their ohm setting—though I'd prefer at least the Krell KSA-100.

Few people in the high end know the difference between glorious excess and wretched folly as well as Harvey Rosenberg. Harvey's audio equipment always strives towards the glorious folly of providing the most romantic sound possible with modern technology. This may explain why his relatively small company, New York Audio Laboratories, can build an amplifier like the Futterman OTL-1, which costs a glorious $12,000 a stereo pair and actively competes for the title of best amplifier in the world.

Several issues back, I mentioned a major "new wave" of power amplifiers coming along: the Adcom 555, the New York Audio Labs transistor-tube hybrids, and the latest Krells, for example. They demonstrate that major audible improvements are still possible in something as well-explored as the power amplifier. Not only that, some of these products demonstrate that superior performance can be combined with relatively low price.