Opinions...Krell KMA 160 Monoblocks

Unless I needed the enormous low impedance power output I would look elsewhere. Unsound is being kind in his assessment of recapping costs, a technician friend of mine has been given Krells by owners who don't want to spend the money to have them repaired. Doubtless SOTA in their day, but that was then and this is now.

One of my favorites. To my ears still better than a lot of the current offerings. Tremendous bass capabilities, and despite what some others may claim, IMHO an overall warm, rich sound. With that said, do be careful about what you put in front of them. They will not hide the faults of what precedes them. These are older, hot running amps, and they might need some maintenance, such as new caps and re-biasing, not an inexpensive proposition.

Tremendous power reserves and dynamic "slam", very controlled bass (I would consider getting a pair to power my bass modules in my speaker system, and I recall from my TAS back issues that for a while, even recently, Harry Pearson used them to power the bass modules of, I believe, the big Nola system) and able to drive almost any speaker load out there. When warmed up they can sound pretty good (a bit steely until they warm up), though perhaps not offering the level of transparency, smoothness and ultimate refinement of some of today's best solid state amps and certainly not tube-like. They do run VERY hot (last of the pure Class A amps from Krell, I believe), and draw a lot of power when idling and especially when you turn them on--I'd suggest you should have a dedicated 20 amp circuit for each one, as my KSA 80 used to dim the house lights at start-up with a 15 amp circuit. Since they're pretty old you should have Krell give them a checkup if you buy them, some of the internal parts might need replacement.