Quote:
Originally Posted by PHC1
I have a friend who is still very bitter after purchasing a very expensive Krell transport back in the late 90's which has been a paperweight for many years now. ...
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I had a similar experience with a Krell transport, the incredibly BEAUTIFUL KPS-25s, bought late 90's. There will never again be such an industrial looking boys toy and in a sick way I miss that unit a great deal, the monochromatic blacks and greys, the way the stainless steel heat ventilation mesh on the top took on a burnt patina as if a factory producing exhaust. Its authority and analytic skill for the redbook standard was all Krell, was military and utilitarian, was all American, was neigh a signal lost.
It has that incredible lid. All manual, heavy and stunning, the LCD(?) screen that would be transparent when the lid was open and activate to grey pixels whilst playing to cut ambient light from contaminating the laser. Although you could turn that off while playing as well for the full transport effect. (In fact there was a small bug in the design and if the lid was caught shy of closing, lifted just a fraction again and then lowered just a fraction and then pulled straight up to open position the transport would still see the lid as closed and the unit would play lid open. The bug is there, it was just a matter of finding the right lift and lower.)
A large, long acrylic lid with housed electronics for the screen and safety switch that prevented the player from playing should the lid be open, it was raised by hand into a slightly tilted back almost vertical position, CD and puck loaded to the transport and then the lid was brought forward and released forward for the soft action lowering mechanism to really, really gently flatten the lid to the player. Then the action.
It was hinged with just two tiny hardened steel pins in a hinge mech. arrangement that handled the soft lower. The stresses on those pins with such a long weight swinging away around on them must be enormous.
In this case, not the transport. Stress fracturing claimed a pin one day, bit right through it at the hinge/lid interface; and the transport was dead. It had to be sent from Australia to America for a new ... pin. Several hundred hundred dollars later I had a new pin.
A bloke called Pat at Krell was extraordinarily helpful and willing and the repair was done very promptly and returned. However, God that was an expensive hardened steel pin for me. I think they charged me for it too, if I remember correctly. And, And, I asked, "did you happen to replace both pins while it was there?". "No", they felt the second pin did not need replacing.
Yeah, not what you expect for that sort of money and not a bill I wanted at that moment either, nor the ripped off feeling. Definitely not something anyone deserves. What's wrong with just letting people play your gear and listen to music!? Why not just over engineer the pins? Like a hardened steel cylindrical block instead? Something that would hold up a building. Their electronics are purely over-engineered, why not the mechs.?
But by God, what a piece of sex that machine was. The tool box, the "Swiss army knife" of audio, transport, DAC, pre. and power supply in a single chassis, it was just such an interesting and somehow counter-audiophilia concept; and they feared not and they produced it and it was a great piece of gear. Then the pin.
The event was my trigger. So I traded and I would now never again consider Krell on my menu of options. Particularly now they have lost d'Agostino due to a separating of ideological paths. I would hazard a guess:- when Krell released their first iPod dock! I suspect, if not already, Krell will be manufacturing overseas soon, I guess they are on the pure profits march. Good luck for their new direction, I suppose. They have built a business and a brand for so many years, maybe it's best to go for the cash. I have no regard for Krell anymore.
Thank God I discovered what Kondo was all about. The Krell KPS-25s and FPB-600 and a grand stash of extra cash went toward my discovery of what Kondo-heads have always said, Kondo had a magic.
Please, I am not here to start up a Kondo bashing. Albeit to say, I know what I'm hearing.