krell kav 300il - what are your thoughts?


if you own or have heard the krell 300il integrated amp, what are your thoughts?
128x128mboldda1
I agree w/ JMS's response, my KAV400xi seems to have boundless power. I haven't come close to clipping this amp or pushing it to its limits. However, the amp is about as un-tube like as SS gear can get. Accurate, but a bit cold with a sharp glass-like edge. Not warm at all. It certainly exposes poorly recorded and mixed source material. I do like it, but I have a little sibilance in my system I'm trying to eliminate. I don't think it's from the amp, but rather power issues I'm having or from the source material, mainly CD's.

I haven't heard the 300 version in a few years so I can't comment.
The Krell KAV-300il and new KAV-400xi are both rated @ 400-watts per channel into 4-ohms, which is plenty of power for most good Speakers, including the B&W Nautilus line up to and including the N802. These integrateds are as powerful as any 200-wpc into 8-ohms Amp. that I have heard, plus they have a very nice-robust-refined easy-on-the-ears (even at high volume levels) sound to them. I would definately consider either model when shopping for powerful well defined Integrated Amp.
The sound qualities (or lack thereof) of Krell KAV series stuff is well documented. Just not very "musical", with lots of SS "glare" & haze. I don't know what Krell is thinking--look elsewhere for nice sounding components.
Heard it in my setup very recently a few days ago.
We did A/B with Sunfire Symphonic Reference Stereo Stack.
My thumbs up was all the way towards Symphonic Reference combo(i.e. separates). I would doubt that this issue is very speaker match specific.

Krell integrated in general is warm amplifier while I more tend to like more attack in performance. Speakers such as B&W CM or CDM ceries with high demand on definition and attack probably will be the best match.

B&W N-series would require much more power than Krell integrated can provide.
I had one in my system,,, i ,, wasnt impressed,, very thin sounding,, there are others that i think are better for the money.
Good luck in your search!