High end yank kit

Ive had three Krells. It wouldn’t be far off beam to refer to them as “the Good,The Bad and The ugly”.

KSA50mk1 was stellar. The sassiest bass imaginable, grip like no other and smoooooth with it too. The other two were KSA80 and KSA100.the latter was mechanical and unattractive to listen to. It was like the alter ego of the KAA50.

KSA80 was OK, but not a patch on KSA50. Lots of people rate it but it had no magic. Capable, big and ballsy though. For people who want big scale it’s still a good amp.

I’ve been had a few other American amps too.

Bryson 4B was great. If I hadn’t had a KSA50 I’d have been in love with it. Lots of slam and dynamics without any downside.

Aragon 4004 was similar but with a more velvety tone. The muscle was there though and it was very believable.

Bedini 100/100 upgraded to 802 spec. These are a bit of an underground amp. Shahinian owners are said to go crazy for them. 100 watts Class A made me want to love it, but it was only so so. Had a hardness to it at times.

Adcom GFA 555. About as unsexy as they come. Nobody would dare mention them in the same breath as the Absolute Sounds “muscle amps” but it was up there with many and better than some. I still can’t believe how cheap these are.

I’ve never had Levinson amps, but I did have few listens to a mates recent-ish model costing a good few grand. It was bright, hard and had nothing special about it. He swears by the older Levinson amps and he’s had them all.

For me and over several samples - a KSA50mk1 was slightly cloudy sounding and maybe not the most atmospheric amp around - thus started the ARC preamp with Krell power amp trend, but in a tri amp Isobarik active setup DNM driven and owned by Jimmy Hughes in the mid 80's, it sounded really great. The KSA80 my colleague had was lovely and it was well able to drive his Apogee Duetta Sigbature speakers for fifteen years or so with no reliability issues. I nearly bought a pair of KMA100's used for nearly £1700 thirty years ago and I should have done instead of the Tube Technology Genesis valve amps which ran their quartet of EL34 output valves much too hard. Another KSA80 into Apogee Caliper Sigs was good sounding too I remember. I had the chance of a KSA50S and owned it for a year or so before selling it to Macca. Rather like the Crowns mentioned below as it's a 'straight' kind of amp with no added 'charm' (on a smaller amp scale, I find Sonneteer amps do likewise but not LFD, which seem to have 'attitude' with it). I sold it because it ran too hot in it's confined space - oh, and I was more skint than usual as well.... Early Krells after the fan assisted originals ran very hot all the time and I feel that this mid period before plateau-basing generation suffered terribly with leaky and dried out caps. Forum poster Simon (SQ) came by at least one KSA250 when they were twenty years old or so and they were absolutely effed according to the pics he posted at the time. I heard one when it would have been less than ten years old and it was hard and harsh as nails...

Threshold amps again had this beefy velvet quality to them and the derived Nakamichi power amps were similar (I owned a PA5mk2 and friends had the PA7 in both varients - incredibly cheap for the engineering on offer and good sound too). Nak preamps were less successful and the line stages easily bettered today despite the lavish build. Very ott output stages which show their age now as modern transistors could minimise the numbers used (ten a side in the PA7) and very long warm-up times (two hours or so) to open up fully.

I had an ARC SP14/Classic 60 at home for a couple of days and thought then excellent, after the lambasting the ARC brand generally gets from non-sheep people. The SP14 was pretty honest, but didn't last long because it didn't sound 'rosy.' The Classic 60 was replaced too and possibly with the same wine but in a new bottle to keep interest going.

1980's and pre take-over 90's black-box Levinson was a hidden secret and many trade contacts rated these far higher than any Krell or ARC product. I've already told the story about why HFN never got to review Levinson.

I use geriatric early to mid 70's Crown amps and acknowledge they're not for everyone. Absolutely NO romance or overt musicality, they just put out what goes in and the D-150 is a little 'dry' with it too - perfect for the equally geriatric organically coloured BC2's and depth of image is recording related, not 'there' all the time. Dated in low impedance drive as they deliberately limit beyond a certain point. After their Power Line models, I believe Crown went more into PA and sound-reinforcement amps which are bomb-proof, but maybe not for delicate domestic sounds? I have the use of a rather wonderful velvet glove DC300A amp every so often and it's on the bucket list, even though my head tells me a Quad 606/707/909 family amp is the better choice for the money...

In the late 70's, KJ dabbled with BGW, Phase Linear, early small Bryston, The Ampzilla and a few others like the awesome Quattre/QMI Gain Cell (which also suffered awesome blow-ups later I gather after a few years of professional abuse...). Taking on Naim in late '77 kinda blew all that away at the time and the rest is history now...

Bryston used to be cheap and well liked in studios twenty years ago. For some reason they and importers PMC, hiked the prices up big-time in the mid noughties and maybe this was due to pro studios going more into baby desktop actives of which there's hundreds around, the big soffit wall models there to impress rock bands I was sarcastically told once. I had a BP25 preamp and after twenty four hours powered, it was sweet toned. From cold it was too stark sounding and I didn't realise it at the time. Twenty year warranty though and the replacement BP26 model has extra supplies a la Naim Supercap, but the £1250 BP25 became the £2500 BP26 overnight sadly and dealer margins were very low too I remember. I lost 50% of the trade price selling it

Threshold is one I would have loved to try. I’ve been outbid a few times. My mate who loves early Levinson also has very positive memories of Threshold. He’s a slo a big fan of Croft. You and he would like many of the same things I reckon.

I’m still getting stuff from it, Dave. Like the Nakamichis being Threshold inspired. I had no idea. I think you’re underselling the value. Nobody else knows the stuff you do. If they do, they aren’t sharing. I spend long periods searching forums for info contained in historical posts. A couple of years from now, these posts will still be popping up,on Google Searches and informing people you will never meet about things not available anywhere else.,

I do like the look of your Bryston Westie.

I have only heard Bryston through PMC speakers at shows and the sound has never been to our liking. It would be nice to hear them with different speakers.

On the subject of high end US kit, I found that it only really shows it’s strengths if you have large speakers, decent soxpzed room and want to listen at high-ish levels.

Big amps really only come into their own for me when given the chance to flex those muscles. If you have a small room, small speakers and you listen at moderate levels, I feel you may be just as happy with an integrated amp.

Just my experience. I did find the big US amps I have had to be better than smalller, cheaper amps as long as they were allowed to show what they can do.

It was one of those fitand forget amps forme. I could easily live with one for life, I’ve spent far more and gotfar less. They aren’t too pretty on the outside but inside they look like a lot more, if anyone wants a fuss free power amp that will drive most things, I’d point them to a 555.

The hifi world would be. A much poorer place without Max.

£200 not that unreasonable for a new transformer. Did you go for it?