First foray into Class A amp -- recommendations

@No_money,

Yeah, I talked to him and was up front about my situation. He said he appreciated my doing that and that he rarely took in trades but would keep an eye out. He also said it was ok to come by sometime and listen a bit.

Now considering mostly Krell and Pass used amps. Going to take a listen to a Krell FPB 300cx tomorrow.

Thanks for all the replies and info! Well, because of space constraints, I am mostly considering stereo amps, which is why I sort of landed on the Krell KSA-200S. I initially was thinking used Pass X250.5, but that runs ~$5000 used and is Class A/B above a certain output level. And, you cannot get any more than 30 wpc in a Pass class A stereo amp(maybe the X250.5 actually sounds better than the Krell KSA-200S, for all I know).

My current speakers are Legacy Audio Signature II which are rated ~93dB efficiency, but I don't want to base an amp decision on that because they are rather old and I may want to get new speakers before long.

@Pnmeyer,

Well, yes, the McCormack is pretty good. I just thought I'd check out a nice used big class A amp and see how much difference, if any, I can discern. If not, I can just sell it. I will never know unless I check it out for myself.

@Dave 72,

I actually have a close dealer who sells Accuphase, Krell, Pass, and ML, but, of course, then I am looking at new or demos, which are going to be more than I want to spend. I'd like to listen to his stuff, but I don't think it's right to take up his time if I am most likely going to buy used.

@ all,

I ran across a Krell FPB-300cx close to my price range, but upon investigation, I found that it does not have RCA inputs. It was suggested that I could use XLR to RCA adapters, but I did some reading on that and many caution against trying to do that. The statement was made that this could result in cutting the power output of the amp roughly in half. Does anybody have any experience with using XLR to RCA adapters with a big Krell amp like the FPB-300cx?

I wonder how much difference in sound quality there is between the FPB-300cx and the FPB-300, which DOES have analog inputs?

Hey, thanks for all the advice. Got to hear the Krell FPB 300cx yesterday, as well as a set of Pass XA-100.5, on the same speakers. With respect to authentic sound of instruments and voices, and a sense of depth and placement of the soundstage, it seemed to me Pass was clearly superior. Now, the Krell seemed a bit more dynamic, with more solid attack on percussive transients. I want the dynamics, but, dang, that true sound of the Pass is impressive. As I was told, however, the Pass SHOULD sound better, as you are talking about an $18,000 set of amps.

@audiolabyrinth, who wrote:

"if you go and audition a krell 400cx or 700cx, they will clearly out perform the pass labs amp you listened to, espeacially with high quality cables"

That much difference between the 300cx and 400cx? I thought the 300cx was a bit more dynamic than the Pass XA100.5s, but it wasn't a huge difference.

Now, the speakers being used in the comparison were Magnepan 3.7, which are apparently not the most dynamic speakers out there. But, there was no question that the Pass were better in sound stage and fidelity to the actual sound of instruments and voices.

 

I ended up buying a Krell FPB 400cx and the sound has been great.  I have had it plugged into a regular 15 amp outlet and I'm about to have a couple of dedicated 20 amp lines run, just to make sure it has enough "juice".