Enjoying the music

Now after about one week of having the music system, I may have run it for about 15 hours in total.

Some initial findings:

The Krell manual recommends to leave the Amplifier in standby mode if not playing it.

In this standby mode the amp is still using quite a bit of power and gets quite warm to the touch. Some days it is especially warm, I would say hot even, although it is in standby mode. So have to switch on the air cond to cool it down a bit when playing the music.

After the first 10 hours of running in, I can hear clearer details from the speakers. So the speakers needed to break-in as well. Perhaps the rubber compound around the mid bass driver are made to this stiffness.

The bass is not much to shout about. Having heard Uncle_vic's setup, I am fairly certain that in time to come I will need to get an active sub woofer. The low deep trembling bass sounds does make a big, big difference to whatever you are listening. But one thing is that this low bass should not be so much as to overpower the high and mid range sounds.

But if I wanted the thunderous bass, I would have to get a AVR amplifier either the 5.1 or 7.1 systems, a big sub woofer and 4 surround speakers to create that cinema effect.

But for the moment, the stereo music is good enough for me. The Krell amp is a big improvement over the last integrated amplifier that I had. I was using a Synthesis Magnum 100 amplifier. This is a hybrid integrated amplifier with valves in the pre-amp section and solid state electronics in the power-amp section. It is rated at 100 watts at 4 ohms and 60 watts at 8 ohms. I was using this hybrid amp to drive the ATC speakers and although the clarity is good, somehow it was not as lively and compelling as other systems that I have heard. The bass was really quite soft but vocal sounds were acceptable. The treble is what will normally create the effect of being in the room where the musicians were playing. In this case, the Magnum amp's treble was not as good as the Krell. The Krell's treble allow you to have quite a good sense of the instruments being played and gives out a lot of details as compared to the Magnum amp. But of course, the price of both products and the power wattage are in a different category as well, so it is not fair to compare in this case.

I have also connected the Astro decoder to the Krell amp through one of the RCA inputs. But what I find is that the sound from the Astro is quite soft compared to the CD player. So in the end, I had to use the Krell's menu option to increase the sound level by another 6 decibels (the max amount is +6). I could do this to increase or decrease for the inputs separately. Which means all the 3 RCA, the balanced XLR, and the Ipod input could be increased or decreased independantly of each other. This then solved the problem. Now listening to the CD Player and the TV, I could set the volume at about 60 to 80 db.


Really getting to enjoy the music more and more.

My hi-fi journey

My first blog here:

I have never had any hi-fi system for myself ever before. Due to work and family commitments as well as budget constraints, over the years, I had not thoroughly got into this fascinating hobby.

I have a small collection of CDs which I would every now and then play on the car audio system. And that would be my source of musical satisfaction. But this is no where near the audio fidelity that can be heard with hi-fi systems, the difference would be the clarity, the sound stage, the range of frequencies that CD sounds could give.

But with time passing by so quickly and now getting on with age, past 50, I thought that I had better get started to pick it up or else it will be too late. The senses are all going downhill from age 40 onwards.... worse, the sense of hearing will be diminished soon, so its now or never.

So I had to search the internet for sources of information on all things related to hi-fi. (A forum that I found I could get a lot of useful information is the www.hifi4sale.net forum). And also to check out the local hi-fi shops for an estimate of how much this hobby might eventually cost me. That was sometime in early January 2010.

I went to quite a number of shops around KL and PJ, and made some friends along the way. Cost? Could be anywhere from RM5K to RM50K. It all depends on what brand you like and what is your preferred type of music. If you want good bass / fast booming rock music - get floor standers, if you still need extra bass - add in an active sub woofer. But if vocals and orchestra is what you like, then book-shelf speakers will do just fine. For me it was quite easy, I will go for book-shelves for vocals. Also this will keep the wifey happy without too much equipment getting in the way, as well as keep the costs low for a first time purchase.

Finally after months of checking out various systems, I decided on the latest Krell integrated amplifier with the British made ATC speakers. My choice of CD Player would be the hybrid valve and solid state Italian made, Synthesis Magnus CDP.

I made my purchases and was soon on my way to getting all the cables connected properly. RCA Interconnects between CDP and Amplifier, speaker cables, power cables.

The ATC speakers are made in England and were heavy for its size, almost 9 kg.












I used a TV table to house the equipment



The Krell S-300i integrated amplifier has a "made in China" on the back but this was designed in the US. This is one heavy amp, almost 20 kg. Took a lot of effort not to drop it when I was getting it into the cabinet. Why is it so heavy when it is not all that big? Could be the 750 VA toroidal transformer inside.
Made in China up to Krell Industries' standards and was built like a tank. It has got 3 sets of single ended analogue inputs and 1 set balanced input, and with 1 more input for Apple's Ipod wherein the Ipod cable was provided.









The CD player, Synthesis Magnus CDP was made in Italy. This is a hybrid valve and solid state CD player, which would be able to minimise the slight tinge of digital sound that normally accompanies DVD players being used as music CD players. But a bit expensive at > RM4K. Now don't know if I overspent on this when I could have gotten a Marantz SA7003 for about RM3K and the balance could have gone into better cables... hmmm










First few hours of running the amplifier gave me not too satisfying results, but I found out why. I used a power regulator to connect the Krell, a big no no. The Krell needs to be plugged in direct to the wall socket preferably. But I only had one near the TV so I used a power extension. When I switched on the Krell, the 3 flourescent lights flickered! This is getting interesting!


Now after running in the system for about 5 hours, I am playing a CD by Regine Velasquez. It is so pleasant to hear the clarity of Regine's voice. Sweet, demure, powerful... well I have the other CDs up soon for listening, Michael Jackson, Kenny Rogers, Madonna's Immaculate Collection.. ( thanks to an Uncle_Vic for introducing me to this Madonna CD with the Q Sound - which is 3D sound... managed to get this "Made in Germany" version from Rock corner )






And managed to get this imported version of History by Michael Jackson from Victoria Music centre.



Well that is all for now. Later when the equipment has run in more hours to break in the electronics, I will post more feedback..