Quote Originally Posted by RGA View Post
Don't take this the wrong way but rather than assume the Onkyo is "one hell of an amp" because it is in the Krell ballpark - I would look at the Krell and wonder why it's not all that much better (in some ways not as good) as a mass market product.

Krell has always been a brute force macro-kind of amplifier and does that quite well - but to me they don't make any emotional connection nor are they particularly good at subtlety. From reading your comparison you're arriving at the same conclusion - even if you're not fully realizing the implication that in the important part of music reproduction - a mass market $500 product is beating something "supposedly" high end. And with a better speaker or an easier to drive speaker some of the Onkyo problems might actually go away. The Krell problems won't because after all they're already made to bully every speaker because they're built to drive everything (which means invariably that it will "overdrive" most.



Of course the Krell was developing some problems so until it is repaired I cannot really compare the two. The Onkyo A-9555 has a peak in frequencies that makes sound more exciting but puts an edge on some female vocalists.

The Monitor Audio RS6's are easy to drive and the Onkyo still has more audible flaws. I was very happy with the Krell and about the time I began being unhappy with the speakers and cables I was using is I think when the problems first started. By the time I noticed the shifting to the left of the soundstage and the noise that continued in the right channel after the amp was on standby I realized there was a problem. So it would be unfair to judge the Krell.