Krell re-introduces Class A

[stollen]

Originally Posted by enit

Krell never designed their stuff for low distortion. It was always about musicality. Their approach isn't about High Fidelity. Is about what sounds good. It has tremendous distortion. But it sounds powerful to many.

Isn't that the most important part, how it sounds? I could care less if some product measures better but sounds worse than another.

And just because I am curious, what do you mean by "tremendous distortion"? Are you talking about a THD rating or what?

[thezaks]

Originally Posted by jpw

thezaks, it means that temperature and the bias setting aren't the only parameters looked at in determining the fan speed. They also look
at the input signal. I'm simply reporting what I was told in person at Krell.
You can choose to believe or not. At the end of the day nothing they do
may satisfy some people who are dead set against a fan system, no matter how well it is designed.

I'm not saying you fall in this category, but I just find it amazing how some people want to shoot the new iBias product down without even hearing it.
Our hobby has a surplus of this ridiculously biased mentality and it is one reason that the hobby struggles to expand beyond the existing base.

I don't mind hearing the amp, I just don't want to hear the fans :-)

Dave

[jpw]

Enit, please post links to reviews or test measurements documenting the tremendous distortion.

In my opinion, good designs should at least start with good measured performance. Then listening can tweak it from there.

[enit]

Dan himself speaks a lot about musicality, over distortion, and it was not a priority in their designs.

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[Apexorca]

Originally Posted by thezaks

I don't mind hearing the amp, I just don't want to hear the fans :-)

Dave

I'v just learned that the fan is for those mounting Krell in a very small space with low air flow. For those having them in a normal rack it's possible to through a computer lower the fan effect.

Krell have fiewer chassies now that lower the cost.

I'v also heard from reliable friends that it actually sounds very good, big soundstage and a step forward. Cast is left in the mono blocks but not in the stereo blocks.

/Apexorca

[Apexorca]

Originally Posted by enit

Krell never designed their stuff for low distortion. It was always about musicality.

Their approach isn't about High Fidelity. Is about what sounds good. It has tremendous distortion. But it sounds powerful to many. If you match them right, you could achieve a better high fidelity sound. We turn to speaker matching and often find so many problems with them in the first place, but ignore them, and base our impressions on the tonality of things, the spacious ness of sound. We imagine the realism of it, without really knowing what it truly is.

So in reality, there's are loads of psychological factors buried deep in our brain. iBias and fans are not the best way to go.

How much is the amp? How much is that fan? Why not dip the transformer into tar? I bet the damping factor is unreal too.

It's a fan cooking system for crying out loud. In a class A!

You want something cool, use a class A/B, or Class H, and not marketing Class A iBias as seemingly efficient as Class A/B. Build a better Class A/B design. How about that.

When are the new amps available?

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You don't like Krell, do you.

I also have doubts about the new iBias, but not the Evo series. The ear must decide.
There are a lot of examples of bad measurements and good sound and vice versa.
I never start with the measurements ore finnish with them as a factor of how it sounds. I must listen. If I don't can trust your ear/brain, it will be hard to optimize a system. I can't read figures and sort it out.

What do you mean
"We turn to speaker matching and often find so many problems with them in the first place, but ignore them, and base our impressions on the tonality of things, the spacious ness of sound. We imagine the realism of it, without really knowing what it truly is."



Before we for sure can know about the performance, someone with an open mind has to listen to them.

[thezaks]

Originally Posted by Apexorca

I'v just learned that the fan is for those mounting Krell in a very small space with low air flow. For those having them in a normal rack it's possible to through a computer lower the fan effect.

/Apexorca

Not sure how that works, especially for home theater following an action scene, where the amp has been pushed hard and has reached high temperatures? I would think you would not want the amp to overheat and/or cause any damage to itself, so the fans can only be subdued so much. There's still the issues with vibration and dust too. Fans aren't much fun

Dave

[jpw]

Enit,

I'm still waiting for proof of "tremendous distortion" in Krell products from any era, instead of your reply in the form of a "Dan-ism". This is a serious charge and if you can't back it up, you should retract the statement. At no time has Krell produced amplifiers with poor measured performance for their time.

Measurements and neutrality matter: Neutrality should be the goal of High Fidelity and it can't be accomplished without measuring. Without measurements and controlled listening, the art of music reproduction can not be moved forward. Measuring insures repeatability if nothing else, and it also gives a baseline to start listening from since the ear has been proven easily fooled. I will give two examples. #1. Remember the terrible inconsistency of NTSC television images from years ago? Get the color where you wanted it and as soon as the channel was changed the color was way off again. The joke was that NTSC stood for Never Twice the Same Color. It resulted from not having the ability to sync broadcast standards with playback standards. HDTV has forced those standards on us and so the improvement in video image consistency has been exponential. #2. Notice how dramatically different the overall audio quality and tonal balance can sound from recording to recording? Recordings made on speakers that are not measurably flat and have too much bass result in recordings that on playback sound thin. Why? Because the engineer mixing the recording hears too much bass and backs it down in the mix. If we all listened on reasonably flat loudspeaker systems (sorry requires measuring and EQ!), these annoying recording differences would be dramatically reduced.

Coloration in a component that remains even after the best engineering effort to make it neutral is forgive-able. Coloration that is added on purpose by the designer is not. People who don't care about faithful reproduction, or those that would not recognize it, are free to buy the designer coloration they like best. Though the logical extension of this attitude reminds me of people who like to watch TV with the reds turned up creating the sunburned look.

[enit]

Originally Posted by jpw

Enit, I'm still waiting for proof of "tremendous distortion" in Krell products from any era, instead of your reply in the form of a "Dan-ism". This is a serious charge and if you can't back it up, you should retract the statement. At no time has Krell produced amplifiers with poor measured performance for their time. Measurements and neutrality matter: Neutrality should be the goal of High Fidelity and it can't be accomplished without measuring. Without measurements and controlled listening, the art of music reproduction can not be moved forward. Measuring insures repeatability if nothing else, and it also gives a baseline to start listening from since the ear has been proven easily fooled. I will give two examples. #1. Remember the terrible inconsistency of NTSC television images from years ago? Get the color where you wanted it and as soon as the channel was changed the color was way off again. The joke was that NTSC stood for Never Twice the Same Color. It resulted from not having the ability to sync broadcast standards with playback standards. HDTV has forced those standards on us and so the improvement in video image consistency has been exponential. #2. Notice how dramatically different the overall audio quality and tonal balance can sound from recording to recording? Recordings made on speakers that are not measurably flat and have too much bass result in recordings that on playback sound thin. Why? Because the engineer mixing the recording hears too much bass and backs it down in the mix. If we all listened on reasonably flat loudspeaker systems (sorry requires measuring and EQ!), these annoying recording differences would be dramatically reduced. Coloration in a component that remains even after the best engineering effort to make it neutral is forgive-able. Coloration that is added on purpose by the designer is not. People who don't care about faithful reproduction, or those that would not recognize it, are free to buy the designer coloration they like best. Though the logical extension of this attitude reminds me of people who like to watch TV with the reds turned up creating the sunburned look.

Working on it!

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[Robert_Anderson]

I heard some of the new stuff recently. I was neither impressed with the sound nor the construction. It is not the same Krell. Being an owner of various Krell products for years, and having spent over $100,000, I don't think I am out of line or disrespectful for saying so. I think I earned it.