Krell 400xi vs. BAT VK-300x vs. McIntosh MA6900

Dave your comments are simply foolishness; I have owned my share of amps the past few years and the couple Mac pieces I have used are not as you'd have us believe. I will agree that Mac floundered through the 80's and a good share of the 90's, but not so these days, IMO. Also, just because Wilson uses ARC and Krell, per you, doesn't mean they are the best and/or the only products one should use with Wilson speakers.

I owned both 400xi and mc 2275. Both are great. Krell has great base and detail but slightly dry sounding. Mac is much fuller sounding and the autoformer does a lot for the base for a tube amp. Overall prefer mcintosh for its timbre.

How about the Pathos Logos? Is this Integrated a contender in this group? Is it worth considering at $4,800-new, or a bit too esoteric/audio jewelry as an Italian Hi-Fi piece?

The krell 400xi is killer good when broken in and cabled properly...mate it to a 6-8ohm speaker of musical heritage and it don't much better at any price, including my former $40K evo rig!! Mcintosh' just doesn't get out of the way of the music...it inflicts a significant signature over the sound. A signature that is not anywhere near state of the art! Martin Colloms would tend to agree since he pulls no punches either. My Mcintosh 501's and C46 were very old school sound...the tube pre was even worse. The parts from the 1960's for heavens sake..anyway, enjoy!!

The Krell 400xi would be ok with smooth, laid-back speakers (usually with soft dome tweeters), like Spendor or Sonus Faber. Not even the ProAcs would sound good with it. If you use metal dome tweeters, you'll notice tilted-up high frequencies, which sounds like more detailed but induces listener's fatigue. Besides, according to Stereophile's test report, the heat sinks are undersized (if you play it loud), but I guess it's fine for normal listening. BAT doesn't have the typical "tube" sound, more analytical than smooth. Even the Integra (designed by BAT) home theater pre and multi-channel power sounds smoother. I like the MA6900, since I like to enjoy my music rather than chasing the absolute truth in recordings. Every piece of conductor in the path of music signals has a signature, even the electrical outlet in the wall (eventually I chose the FIM outlet for its warm sound). So my opinion is, choose the sound that you enjoy most, i.e. the amp that creates the most endorphin in your brain.