Vintage amps are cool. I listened to my first Levinson ML9 (100 wpc, Class A) connected to a monster sized pair of Apogee flat panel speakers. Woooweee, that amp and those speakers were a match made in heaven. The thing about though is that an Apogee flat panel speaker is "voiced" with an emphasis on midrange; this means a dry sounding amp would be perfectly matched to an Apogee because the neutral sounding amp plus a rich voiced speaker evens out.
Back to vintage Class A amps, if you are looking to buy a Krell KMA, KSA, FPB or any sort of these Krells, all these amps are biased very high so they get HOT, like hot enough to cook an egg. When it comes to Levinson, a ML anything will need service because the capacitors are old, and old technology caps are not built as well as new Nichicons, Black Gate, Mundorf, etc. capacitors. If you absolutely have to buy a vintage Krell, Levinson, or other brand, call George Meyer AV in Los Angeles. They do tons of this capacitor replacement work, and they can tell you about specific amps and give you worse case scenario pricing to bring say an old amp back to life. The only Levinson I would personally get is a set of monoblocks, as in the 20.6. Everything else, meh, IMHO - hah! As for old Krell, I think the KSA50 and KSA100 are fairly musical, but for the money you spend to acquire and fix it, hell you can get something much better.
Back to vintage Class A amps, if you are looking to buy a Krell KMA, KSA, FPB or any sort of these Krells, all these amps are biased very high so they get HOT, like hot enough to cook an egg. When it comes to Levinson, a ML anything will need service because the capacitors are old, and old technology caps are not built as well as new Nichicons, Black Gate, Mundorf, etc. capacitors. If you absolutely have to buy a vintage Krell, Levinson, or other brand, call George Meyer AV in Los Angeles. They do tons of this capacitor replacement work, and they can tell you about specific amps and give you worse case scenario pricing to bring say an old amp back to life. The only Levinson I would personally get is a set of monoblocks, as in the 20.6. Everything else, meh, IMHO - hah! As for old Krell, I think the KSA50 and KSA100 are fairly musical, but for the money you spend to acquire and fix it, hell you can get something much better.