Krell S1200 or Yamaha CXA5100?


These 2 seem to be close in used price 1500 for Yamaha and 2K for basic S1200 Krell.  I am looking for best quality performance through HDMI DTS MA and Dolby TRU HD. I am using a Panasonic UB900 which seems to be a good digital transport compared to the other BR players I"ve had and since it has dual HDMI outs I don't care about video capabilities of the processor and don't care about the atmos feature since I'm only using 5.1 speaker setup. Just audio from HDMI is mainly all I'm concerned about.
nak127
That's good to know about the firmware. I was just thinking- I do have 3 higher end preamps all krell and connecting to multiout analog of Panasonic. In your opinion would the s1200 be superior to this or about same?
I don’t have them set up like that yet but was considering it. Audio video standard,Kav300r(has preamp out), and Kav250P. Currently using AVS as Ht unit. It is not competitive compared to newer offerings at HT but is really good in 2 channel in my opinion. My previous HTS 7.1 killed it in HT but I preferred preamp and PCM 2 ch on this(has same basic circuits as studio) Preferred looks on AVS also.

The sonic signature of the S1200 is going to be very similar to the HTS 7.1, but better in my opinion due to supporting hi-res audio/bluray and a better digital section (Sabre DAC with TCXO clock). The HTS 7.1 was the first line of products from Krell where they made the analog circuits much higher bandwidth. This gave us a faster sound, faster attack, more clarity and detail. Some people also feel that it is too bright/forward sounding ("in your face" sound). I personally love this sound for both music and movies because it gives a sense of realism that warmer systems do not have. If this is not what you’re looking for, then maybe S1200 would not be a good choice.

The AVS / KAV300r / KAV250P were all older devices back when Dan D’Agostino was influencing the design and all had a warmer and more laid back sound. I have found that Dan likes designing towards a warmer/richer sonic signature. While you could use a combination of these three preamps to handle the analog output of the bluray player, it is going to be nearly impossible to match the volume output of each as you turn the sound up and down during different movies/music (each preamp has a completely different volume indicator and may have different steps). For example, even having the center channel 2 db less than left/right will cause vocals to sound very far away and hard to hear. If you wanted to do something like this, you would want 3 of the exact same preamps, such as 3 KAV-250P, so that you could use the same remote to control the volume steps. In addition, the analog output of the UB900 is going to be sub-par.

If I went that direction, I would want an bluray player with an extremely good analog stage, such as Oppo BDP-105 or something. You could also look at a 7-channel analog preamp, such as Parasound P7. This ultimately would be more money than buying a used S1200.

Since you liked the warmer/richer sound of the AVS, I would look hard at the Marantz AV8802/AV8802A as a modern replacement. The only difference is that the "A" model supports the new HDCP 2.2 protocol. The Marantz sound is slightly on the warm side of neutral, but still very detailed. Many people love the "musicality" of Marantz. It also has excellent power supply and discrete fully-differential balanced audio circuits (in case you want to use XLR cables). They are ranging from $2300 to $2700 used. There’s a 8802 on ebay now for $2300.

Alternatively, you could look at Marantz 7702/7703. They are cheaper and maybe more in your budget. However, the main power supply on these is half the size of the 8802 and the analog audio channels are all condensed onto one board. The 8802 has 13 individual boards for each analog channel. Sound quality is not going to be as good as 8802.

Thanks for detailed thorough overview of the equipment. I knew 8802 was trop notch but thought it was hovering in the 3K range which is out of ,my ballpark. If I had that much to spend Id probably get a non 4k foundation since I've heard it's best out there. . I do prefer the HTS type sonic signature for movies just not as much for 2 channel. That's one reason I had considered Yamaha-had compared a Yamaha rx-a3010 in preamp mode to the HTS on movies. In regular DTS and dolby the Krell killed it but when I put Yamaha with the Hi res audio stuff it was almost dead even HTS winning by a hair. So with Hi Res but basically same preamp section as HTS the 1200 sounds like the one to get for me. I could run through 250P in theater mode if I don't like 2 channel as much as old ones. I'm also decent at working on Krell processor and CD stuff if it has problem but not so much on the Denon/Marantz.