AXPONA 2010

"That's a familiar sound," I thought as I entered the 5th-floor suite shared by YG Acoustics and Krell. It was the classic Show dem record from the early 1980s, James Newton Howard & Friends on Sheffield Lab. The speakers were the YG Anat Reference II Studios ($70,000/system), which differ from the Anat Reference II Professional reviewed by Wes Phillips a year ago in not having the powered subwoofer modules. The room was problematic at low frequencies—either there was an upper-bass suckout or there was too much upper bass—and YG's Dick Diamond had spent long hours optimizing the sound on set-up day, but the effort was obviously worth it.

Krell's VP of Sales and Marketing Bill McKiegan brought me up to date on what had been happening at the Connecticut company since the forced departure last fall of founders Dan and Rondi D'Agostino. Engineering continuity is assured by the presence of Director of Engineering Todd Eichenbaum, who, Bill told me, has been primarily responsible for Krell's designs for the past decade. Bill and the other two Krell engineers have between them 68 years of experience at the company. Making their public debut at Axpona were the e (for "eco-friendly") series of products. The Evo 402e power amplifier ($18,500) offers a standby consumption of just 2W compared with its predecessor's 70W. The rest of the Show system comprised the Evolution 202 preamplifier ($16,500) and the Evolution 525 CD player ($12,000).