krell kav-300i replacement

[superfou]

Hi,

First time posting here. I've done some searching, but I don't think I've found anything that quite covers my question. I've owned B&W Nautilus 805s and a krell kav-300i for some years. Recently, I was able to buy some Nautilus 803s and an htm-2 for a very good price. I thought that I would need more power for the 803s than the krell could provide, but that doesn't seem to be an issue. I've compared it with an adcom gfa-5002/5006 and crown xls2000 without any finding any obvious differences, except that running audio through my receiver doesn't seem to sound as good as going straight through the krell or another pre-amp. At this point I'm trying to find the smallest possible amount of hardware that can give me the same level of functionality I have now. My current component list is:

In use:
Onkyo HT-RC180
Krell Kav-300i
Sony UDA-1

auxiliary:
adcom gfa-5006
adcom gfa-5002
rotel rc-972
crown xls2000

I haven't found a receiver pre that has all the hdmi inputs and usb dac I need, but I've looked at the parasound p5 and it seems like it might be an ideal solution coupled with a good amp and receiver, but the krell is already pretty good in a very small form factor, so I'm checking to see if anyone with more experience has any thoughts.

Thanks,
Mark

 

[PENG]

Hi,

First time posting here. I've done some searching, but I don't think I've found anything that quite covers my question. I've owned B&W Nautilus 805s and a krell kav-300i for some years. Recently, I was able to buy some Nautilus 803s and an htm-2 for a very good price. I thought that I would need more power for the 803s than the krell could provide, but that doesn't seem to be an issue. I've compared it with an adcom gfa-5002/5006 and crown xls2000 without any finding any obvious differences, except that running audio through my receiver doesn't seem to sound as good as going straight through the krell or another pre-amp. At this point I'm trying to find the smallest possible amount of hardware that can give me the same level of functionality I have now. My current component list is:

In use:
Onkyo HT-RC180
Krell Kav-300i
Sony UDA-1

auxiliary:
adcom gfa-5006
adcom gfa-5002
rotel rc-972
crown xls2000

I haven't found a receiver pre that has all the hdmi inputs and usb dac I need, but I've looked at the parasound p5 and it seems like it might be an ideal solution coupled with a good amp and receiver, but the krell is already pretty good in a very small form factor, so I'm checking to see if anyone with more experience has any thoughts.

Thanks,
Mark

I would get a HA-1, probably about the same cost as the P5 but if to me it is the purist affordable dream.

 

[Seth=L]

The Krell is archaic, at least for the application you're suggesting. It's a neat little integrated amplifier but it wasn't really designed to be used as a power amplifier.

The XLS-2000 certainly doesn't look as nice as the Krell but it does offer more power and is huge improvement in efficiency.

Call me crazy though, I don't see how mixing a mid-tier home theater receiver with high end separates is an ideal situation. Maybe a single high end home theater receiver with enough power for all your speakers would be more ideal.

Take a look at the Marantz SR7010.

To help reduce the cost to the bank you might part with the Krell & Adcom amplifiers.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I think 150W into 8 ohms/ 300W into 4 ohms is more than enough for most B&W speakers, which are usually 90dB/2.83V/m.

 

[superfou]

The HA-1 looks really nice and would have the added benefit of a great headphone amp. I've also considered the audio-gd nfb-28 which seems like it would be comparable at about half the price, though not nearly as polished.

I probably could have made it clearer that I'm not just using the krell as an amp, but as a pre-amp in combination with the the sony usb dac for my 2 channel listening and the pass-through for my HT. I may end up trying out a new receiver. I agree it's not ideal, but I need to have one system for both HT and music at the moment and I haven't seen any receivers with USB dac inputs. I had intended on selling the krell but it's proven to be very useful in such a small size. I just wish it ran cooler.

Thanks for the responses.