Krell 500 vs. Bryston 9B

Which models of Dynaudio would you be pushing? I have no hands-on experience with the Bryston, so unfortunately, I can't give you any comparison. I have owned the Krell KAV500 for a couple years now, and for the last year have driven Dynaudios with it. There are a lot of detractors on this particular amp - not really a Krell, etc. I think it's a great HT amp in general. The Dynaudios sounded good, but then I bought a Krell KAV-250a for the L/R fronts and that really brought them to life.

Bottom line - if you're driving a set of Dynaudio monitors, it's probably a good match. If they're the bigger speakers, it'll sound good, but you really need more amp for the bigger Dynaudios. I doubt the Bryston would be much different since it's rated approximately the same. You can get the Bryston for a bit less money, and that's probably wise, though the Krell / Dynaudio combination is a really nice one. -Kirk

Thanks for the info. I am driving Dynaudio 1.8 MKII's and am wondering if I even need to have a surround amp. My rears currently are Bose 201's (may upgrade later) and my receiver will need to be upgraded later as well (to a preamp/processor). Perhaps the 250a or the Bryston 4B-ST would be a better way to go just to push the Danes in two channel. I do like HT alot. HMMMMM.

I have a friend with that model of Dynaudio that he drives with the Arcam 100 w/ch five channel amp (same as the KAV-500), and he gets really great sound. I have the 3.0's up front. I really liked the 3.0's driven by the KAV-500 - it was just that much nicer to go to the 250. My guess is that you'd get excellent sound if you go with the 500 (or the 9B for that matter).

I, too, really like the HT experience as well as the music. If you want to plan an upgrade path, you could do a lot worse than getting a five channel amp now, get a nice pre-pro when you have the finances to do that, and ultimately buy a couple more channels of higher quality amplification for the fronts when money ultimately permits. This leaves you with 7 channels of amplification, but there are many possible end-points where you'll need them anyway. Many manufacturers have 7.1 surround sound, and the industry has defined 6.1 formats. As much as I like HT, I doubt I'll ever get to the point where I have big speakers (and therefore need more than something like the KAV-500) for the surrounds or side speakers. You can always bridge the 500 if you really do end up with extra channels.