System synergy is the culprit. You have multiple pieces that are bright sounding (krell and B&W) and both together will make things much worse. Your Onkyo is much warmer sounding than the krell and why did B&W buy Classe? Because Classe produced warm sounding gear which works well with B&W speakers. You also see a lot of McIntosh gear teamed up with B&W speakers for the same reason.
Try using your Onkyo with your B&W speakers to see if they sound better
Help me make sense of this - Midfi system sounding better hifi.
I have a few systems but recently I changed the setup and pleasantly accidentally I came up with a really enjoyable system from midfi gears like Onkyo M-306 power amp, acurus pre, Klipsch kg 1.2 speakers, Topping E-30 DAC, and Ixos cables.
My main hifi system consists of Krell pre/power, B&W 802 D speakers, Firestone upstreaming DAC, and Transparent cables.
The former system is considrably more dynamic and exciting to listen to - why?
Is the Onkyo power amp M-306 that good? It's 300 watts per ch compared to Krell 200 watts - is that why the difference in dynamic exciting quaility?
Any insight will be greatly appreciated as I am not enjoying my Uber system that costs as much as a luxury car, and getting me upset - I enjoy the midfi system that can be assembled for 1/30th of the cost...alas!