I think of Krell, I think of amazing power amps. I have always heard mixed things about this units and found the reviews to be mixed. AudioAdvisor had a demo available in my price range when I was shopping. Here is WhatHiFi's POV and why I ultimately didn't buy it.

http://www.whathifi.com/krell/s-300i/review

The Krell review seemed to imply that is sounds great for instruments but doesn't sound good on some voices. Particularly something like Don't Give Up from Peter Gabriel.

Krell to me is like McIntosh. You want to be in the club, you need to step up and get a mainstream unit from them. The entry point unit from Both aren't quite up to the same level as the balance of the line.

Ron-

if the amp is made in china, skip it.

The best response is - and regulars on the board know this is one of my favorite, simple answers - Bullshit.

I'll be the first to say Krell is rarely my first pick because I'm not a fan of the "house sound", but this is a great little integrated. I've heard them first hand for 3 of the 4 generations and they have always been excellent. They started at about 2500 in the late 80's or early 90's when they started making them and they I believe are still well under 5000. That's a fair accomplishment in the age of the week dollar itself. The 300i integrated has been a great little amp for the eternity that Krell has been making it. It's small, runs pretty cool, looks great, and sounds good for the money. And if it's more than a few years old, if you don't like it you'll likely sell it for what you bought it for.

Take the leap and try it.

Visiting the website, they apparently no longer make traditional dual-mono integrateds. Shame.

I also considered a couple of Krells a while back.

They do seem to be a mixed bag.

I ended up, partly due to a recommendation I got from John Atkinson, buying the Musical Fidelity M6PRX to drive my Vandersteen Treos (which at 82.5 db/watt need a lot of power).

It is absolutely excellent; a steal at $3500! It sounds significantly better than the very good Bryston amp it replaced.

I can't imagine any speaker that it would not drive easily.

It is also worth noting that it is one of the few amplifiers under $10,000 that rates a Class A in Recommended Components.

I have owned my Krell S-300i for a number of years. More than 5 years now that I think of it. Good sound that is neutral. The amp is detailed with good soundstaging. I have never tired of the sound as I did with Cambridge electronics and my Onkyo A-9555. The fact that it was assembled in China has never been an issue since this is a quality amp. Music Direct is selling the S-300i at a great closeout price.

I had written a response and I see it was lost somehow. The best description of the amp I can share is do not buy it if you want to warm up bright speakers or brighten warm sounding speakers. The S-300i does not emphasize any parts of the audio range. I own the Marantz SA 8001 and it sounded too warm in my system. The Sony SACD player is more detailed and neutral and more to my liking.

I had recently listened to Paradigm Studio 20's with Simaudio Moon int. amp and that combo seemed warm. A little too dark for my tastes. Both amps have good soundstaging when the speakers and recordings can produce good imaging and depth. The Krell can drive any of my speakers with their power and control. A good amp can make less expensive speakers sound quite good. Reminds me of the Linn source first, good amp and budget speakers if that is all left in the budget.

I listen to all types of music from Classical to Black Eyed Peas. Jazz and Broadway musicals to folk and rock for my many moods. Chamber music and large scale music are well served.

All vocal music sounds great. Large scale groups are impressive. Guitar sounds great regardless if electric or acoustic. Drums have that quick percussive sound.

It is certainly not two dimensional as earlier Krell int. amps were reported to be. I find that my vinyl records have greater soundstage depth than cd's. I own several pair of speakers and soundstaging also varies with the speakers in use. If your speakers and recorded music are capable of a deep soundstage the amp will deliver.

My Monitor Audio RS6's and JBL Studio 530's are detail champs. My Mobile Fidelity OML 1's swing better than my other speakers with jazz and funk. My Focal 806V's bring another flavor to the party. All in all the amp lets the speakers perform without any undue influence. I hope this helps.

Transparent is the dumbest word in audio. The presuppositions in it's usage just run too deep. It's more realistic to say [some piece of gear] has a realistic tone and timber based on your expectation of the live event. Given that every instrument sounds more or less different in every environment, transparent really doesn't mean much at all.

Now that said, my only complaint about Krell has been a dryness and lack of tone in the upper midrange and hazy hardness in the vocals. That said it lends itself to a peakiness that some call detail. To me detail is fleshed out in the realism of decay and tone. Because THAT is what says tells you it's a middle C on a fiddle not a distant mic'd cello or Hammond organ.

jgossman wrote:

Now that said, my only complaint about Krell has been a dryness and lack of tone in the upper midrange and hazy hardness in the vocals. That said it lends itself to a peakiness that some call detail. To me detail is fleshed out in the realism of decay and tone. Because THAT is what says tells you it's a middle C on a fiddle not a distant mic'd cello or Hammond organ.

I am curious if this is from listening to the S-300i or other Krell equipment? I have never experienced most of what you describe from my Krell.

There is a new product from Musical Fidelity that should be of interest to a great many people.

The M6Si integrated amplifier is only $2995, and puts out 220W per channel at 8 ohms.

It also includes a high-quality phono stage.

It essentially is a replacement for the previous M6 integrated amplifier, which cost $6000 and had slightly different but similar features.

I suspect that this may set a high standard for this price, if it sounds as good as I expect it to.

My Krell while sounding good has just had it's third problem in 6 years. The first two were repaired under warranty and now this last one may cost me out of pocket. So while a good sounding amp I felt the need to mention the dependability issues I have experienced.

I had a Bryston 3B-SST amplifier for a while before buying my Musical Fidelity M6PRX amp, and the M6PRX sounds much better.

If you want a really good deal on a nice amp, I could sell you a nice one for $800. I originally paid about $1400, I think, but if you adjust for inflation that is more like $3000 in current dollars, because that was over 20 years ago.

It is an Audire Forte amplifer, which is not made any more, but it puts out 250 watts at 4 ohms and sounds very good indeed. The physical size and weight (45 lb) is about the same as the Bryston 3B-SST, and it has balanced and unbalanced inputs. It has been absolutely reliable for 20 years; a very strong design. They were designed and hand-made by a former aerospace engineer in Fountain Valley, CA named Julius, and he made several thousand of them. He has retired now.

I upgraded the input caps with the same rather expensive Dynamicaps that Audio Research is using for output coupling in their top preamps, and that made a fairly good amp into an excellent one. The sound quality is not quite as good as the M6PRX, but pretty darn close (better than the Bryston).

If you do an online search for "Audire Forte" you will see a bunch of pictures and some archive reviews. It is a dual-mono amp, by the way. It even has two power switches for the two amplifiers, which are totally independent of each other.

It's no big deal to me whether I sell it or not, but it is a steal for someone who wants a great amp at a cheap price.

rrstesiak wrote:

John:

Thank you for coming back to this thread and sharing honest experiences.

My question to you: do you drive your amps hard? Maybe you have a large listening room and need to extract every watt from any amp?

Another question... Are you a strictly Krell fan, or have you owned other brands and used them in the same music room without incident ?

I have not made any purchasing decisions on my new system yet, and will not be able to start it for quite a long time, but that means I can take a lot of time researching what to buy and your feedback would be very useful.

Kind Regards,

Ron

Ps. Any experience with Bryston amps or DACS? I recently bought a used BDA-1 DAC and on high res, the thing is simply gold.

Due to my satisfaction with the sound of the Krell I have not been listening to other amps. The last amp I heard was a Simaudio integrated amp when listening to a pair of speakers for the first time. Everything in the system was new to my ears so I really am unable to comment. I am pleased to say that Krell is going to repair my amp as if it were under warranty due to two previous problems.

I am currently using my budget Onkyo A-9555 Class D integrated amp to drive my speakers. Wow I miss the Krell. It is not a bad amp it just does not have the drive and control of the S-300i. Music through the Krell is more flesh and blood, three dimensional than with the Onkyo. The Onkyo is either bright or thin sounding in comparison.

My stereo is in the living room of my apartment. The size of the room is 12x15 feet. Of course the room extends another 8 feet for the dining area. I have neighbors so I rarely get to run it hard. I think I have just been unlucky with some individual parts failing prematurely. I am not interested in another amp just the return of my Krell S-300i.