Puremusic,
Well, I do not think that the problem of your system with balanced inputs or any other abracadabra that audio people managed imagine in their ultimate lunacy.
You did not named what specifically frustrates you in your bass. The phrases quick, detailed, or transparent as the rest of the spectrum are not indicative; at least I do not understand them. Looking at what you said I would give you a few tips and you figure out yourself how they might be applied in your satiation.
1) AC line conditioners are fine but NONE of them (and I had practically all of them) can handle the lower bass properly. The best of them would create the impressed bass but it you listen serious music and do not have barbarian or corrupted audio taste (most of audio people do) then you might fine that the line conditioners (including the isolation transformers and etc
) might not be used. The high bandwidth dedicated power line unfortunately is the only way to go, at least for lowest bass.
2) None of the Krells ever were capable of correct bass. The Krells bass is a noise of Niagara Falls it juts a low frequency noise. It is hard to say what wattage you would be sufficient for this woofer. It would depend from the size of your room and the specific driver that Wilson people used in there. I think Wilson had 4 different versions of this woofer and only one of them used a good driver. If you lucky to have the model that use 1808 driver then you are in good shape. That sucker needs a lot of power if properly used however in your ported situation it might not need so much. It is very hard to estimate and only you might be the judge. Get better amp bit cleaner bass and THEN judge if you have enough power.
3) Wilson crossover should be trashed right her at the Audiogon aftermarket. Those crossovers kill bass with the force of a nice hurricane. Use whatever crossover you have to find the correct cut off and slope and then go to line level-passive right at you power amp input (or built it in between the stages). The important do not make the crossover to drive even one inch of cable and do not load the crossover with own PS and buffers. Thos thing are very bad for bass. Unfortunately the WHOW-type topoly will force you to go for higher order filter and it might bring own complications in the building-in the crossover into your amp but it still manageable and for the money you sell the Wilson crossover you should be able to recruit a technician to do the job, including the passive channel mixing.
4) Think out of bass in term of amplification for this thing. You might look at a single Lamm M2.1. I think it was near 240W and I have seen how the SS Lamm turned on the bass shiny speakers. If you lucky you might find one single monoblock
Look for old production of those amps when Lamm did not saved money and paralleled output transistors in sufficient quantities for a given power and ran it at higher current. His later production was kind of funny: the chasses and the radiators had slots for the paralleled translators but the translators were not there
The Lamm new version of this amp. I think it called M2.2 but I am not sure might be acceptable but I really do not know as I never listen them seriously. However, despite that some of the Lamms amp do not do anything audio spectacular in bass but certain things Lamm dose with bass dynamics very properly and it is what I might suggest you to do. As an alternative, perhaps the VERY ridicules alternative you might looks for high voltage direct coupled OTLs. Yes, they are horrible performers and particularly in bass dynamics but ironically in your case they can do. Since you cross your woofer somewhere at 25Hz you would be able to run such OTL at LF transition slop and it you have enough power to burn then it might be very interesting
Good luck and have fun.
Romy the Cat
