Krell Restoration


Want to restore my FPB-200. Works fine, but must repair my 802s and thought I should have the Krell caps checked out and replaced as needed. It's been 15 years of hard use. Should I send it to Krell, or use a local, highly regarded specialist located near me on the West Coast? Got the Krell carton, but shipping could be deadly. Any experience with third party repair?
dderham1948
To save a couple of bucks vs. trained personnel familiar with the unit seems like a bad trade off PLUS you will have a warranty from Krell that will mean something as opposed to one where the shop may be gone in six months!
Good luck!
azjake
Is there no Krell dealer in your area? Thier tech should be able to do this easily.
Not trying to save a couple of bucks, worried about FedEx or UPS dropping it too many times.
The local shop can use better caps than Krell? Replace the internal wiring to speaker and XLR connects. Other things Krell may and do.
Question is, will the local shop tear it down and find they can't complete the repair because of proprietary parts or some secret handshake known only to Krell. Will they be able to calibrate it, and is that necessary when simply replacing parts?
Thought the experts on this site would know if the good local tech would be a safe path.
I would suggest you ship these to Krell, even if you are not warm to the idea. They will replace your caps with most recent version available, check everything up and adjust power supply bias. A local tech can certainly replace the caps, not too sure if he would know how to adjust the PS bias which is important to keep everything running smooth. There could be some proprietary components to be replaced and would think that a local repair shop could not do much for you in this situation.

I have sent my FPB-350MCX monoblocks for recap to Krell and they replaced all caps and amp cover screws. The unit is now running much cooler than previously. You will have to wait 100-200 hrs before the caps are fully broken up and get the tremendous bass back from your Krell, once the job is completed.
Agree with posts above that major overhaul be done by the factory. I own ARC gear and use a local ARC authorized tech only for basic soldiering type repairs (e.g., replacing burned bias resisters). But ... if something was really wrong with any of my ARC units, I would have no hesitation in sending them back to the factory.

Don't know how Krell gear is boxed, but ARC uses double boxing with a 1" Styrofoam liner in between the boxes. When I bought or sold ARC gear, I shipped by FedEx. Been lucky. No problems. But I ship to and from a local FedEx office. That way FedEx can't deny shipping condition on the shipping "to" or "from."

Good luck.