Krell amp with Zu Essence speaker

Absolutely. My Essence just arrived today. Great match for my MastersounD Compact 845 amplifier. Detailed, smooth, great soundstage and imaging, and plenty loud with only 30 wpc.

Did you get a listen to the Essence yet? I bought a pair a little over a month ago. Will be another month before I receive them. My situation is quite a bit different- I have all tube gear and a MastersounD Compact 845 SET amp- about 30 wpc. I chose the Essence because I want to experiment with a high efficiency design, since I have a low power system. With that Krell, you may find yourself needing earplugs...that thing is gonna be ear splitting. You should easily be able to generate spl's in excess of 120 db with that rig. Ouch. It's gonna be like having the Concorde take off in front of your face. Have fun. An advance purchase of hearing aids may be in order, too. Zu says the Essence can handle up to 300 wpc, I believe....not that you'll ever get there without an incredible amount of pain, but having the reserve is always nice. And if you don't like the neighbors, well, you've just created the perfect weapon with which to attack them.

Absolutely. I'll let you know. Should be here by mid-March. I imagine yours are on the manufacturing line right now, too. You may want to try a tube amp with the Essence. They're designed for that, and the 12 ohm load they present is right up a tube amp's alley. With Krell, you've got some of the best solid state stuff out there. Tubes are another ballgame. You will someday need to check it out. I have a Jeff Rowland amp sitting idle. After I got the MastersounD, there was just no going back to solid state. The Rowland is purely a backup now.

Hope so. Should be about two weeks now. Shouldn't need a lot of power with these. Most speakers need to get over the 100 dB mark to really start to sing and exhibit their best. With the Essence, that should take about two watts of power. Full range speakers are odd, though. Seems like you either like them or hate them. Which is why I went with Zu- you don't like 'em, you have 60 days to return them for a full refund. Not a bad deal, a two month in house demo. Who else offers that?

The first thing that struck me was the detail. Can hear stuff that really wasn't obvious with my monitors. The highs are silky smooth- much better than the cone drivers on the monitors. Good bass- not thundering, but solid. Excellent soundstage and imaging. Negatives? They seem, compared to the Aliantes, a bit sloppy in the mids once in a while. Perhaps sloppy is a bad term- jumbled is more like it. But that's fairly minor, and the details and sounstaging plusses compensate more than enough. It's more like "live" music. Doesn't seem manufactured at all.

Donzi, did you get your Essence yet? What finish did you get? Need some pics, man! Had some time to really air it out the past few days. I will absolutely guarantee you one thing- if you hook those babies up to those Krell monoblock monsters, you will damage your hearing if you turn them loose. My ears are ringing with only 30 wpc- and I haven't even come close to having the volume knob halfway up yet. The louder these speakers go, the better they seem to sound. They really seem to open up at higher volumes without losing any detail, soundstage or imaging. The imaging, in particular, is fantastic. Sounds pop out from all over the room, not just the center. I think you'll really like them. I know I do. For me, it was a great choice as a main speaker. Need to listen to some Legacy Focus HD's- I've heard some fantastic things about them, but I've never had the privilege of listening to them. Not a big price jump from the Essence, and although the load is only 4 ohms, they're very steady. The Essence, rated at 12 ohms and 9 ohms nominal impedence, has a pretty funky impedence curve- there's a dip to about 4 ohms for the ribbon tweeter component.

Jet black gloss upgrade. Pic up on the "my system" link. I like the JL sub with the Essence. Set the low pass frequency at about 75 Hz, it sounds very good. Augments the low end of the Essence quite nicely.

I doubt you'll damage them with the Krells. It would get painfully loud before you even get close to overdriving them, or even straining them. Mine are loud with only 30 wpc. I can't imagine what 350 would be like. You're talking about more than a 9 dB jump with that sort of power. It would be brutal.