175,000 Hour Service - Definitely Overdue !

[Rush2112]

So a chance conversation with an old friend and former Hi-Fi retailer made me suddenly aware of how long my Krell KRC 3 preamp had been running, which, as it has no standby or on/off switch, is about 175,000 hours or 20 years !

A overhaul was certainly due and fortunately we were just in time before we had leaking capacitors and circuit board damage to contend with.

My long time go to person for such things is someone who has an enviable background in professional and domestic audio engineering and despite being snowed under with his professional audio work, post lifting of the Covid restrictions, he agreed to take a look !

What followed was a complete overhaul, the aim to be as true to the original design as possible replacing components with like for like or the most suitable currently available alternatives. This most certainly was not a "Hot Rodding" exercise!

The end result was nothing short of outstanding the degradation over the years, probably the last five particularly, was significant and what I now have is an outstanding preamp, extremely quiet with wide deep open soundstage, dynamics and bass extension which are jaw dropping, with an ability to groove in a way that had certainly been missing !

Better than new ? Well I can't remember it being quite this good but other things in the system have changed so its hard to be definitive, what I can say is if you have gear 15 years old or more, that has had been running for much of that time, then start thinking of having someone give it a thorough inspection before it is perhaps too late !!

I've also had a lesser but no less essential overhaul to the active part of my Sonus Faber Gravis subwoofer and my Krell FPB 200c is next up.

System pictures posted and when the FPB is done some internal pictures of both preamp and power amp will posted.

[Alex_UK]

Great write up there Mark, enjoyed reading it and food for thought! Nice looking system too. [emoji846]

[Rush2112]

Thanks Alex, appreciated.

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[cpjvej2012]

Sorry to resurrect and old thread, but can I ask what unit that is that you have your TV on? Really like it! Where did you get it?

Thanks

[Rush2112]

Hi, custom built by Robes and Rails a local manufacturer of fitted bedroom, office etc furniture. So any decent company locally to you should be able to do the job.

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[AJSki2fly]

Hi Mark,
I enjoyed reading your post, I recently purchased a a Krell KSP-7B pre to go with the KSA-80 power amp, as you say the pre-amps from Krell certainly do deliver on "wide deep open soundstage, dynamics and bass extension which are jaw dropping, with an ability to groove", I was lucky the one I purchase has been fully re-capped in the last 2 years, and the PSU as well.

Your system looks great. :)

Cheers

[Rush2112]

Hi Adrian,

Thanks for the reply, I would say that the Krell combo's are still some of the best I've heard. I know to equal them sonically with new current models from any decent manufacturer would be well in excess of £20,000. I heard the Rotel Michi combo at £11,000 recently and that isn't in the same league!https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230127/325eafde30d7479df7ee355cf242cae9.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230127/f3c2d1c05aaa186f1fd6c0c5ccdb6034.jpg

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[Rush2112]

Hi Mark,
I enjoyed reading your post, I recently purchased a a Krell KSP-7B pre to go with the KSA-80 power amp, as you say the pre-amps from Krell certainly do deliver on "wide deep open soundstage, dynamics and bass extension which are jaw dropping, with an ability to groove", I was lucky the one I purchase has been fully re-capped in the last 2 years, and the PSU as well.

Your system looks great. :)

CheersHi Adrian, any pics of your system?

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[AJSki2fly]

Hi Adrian, any pics of your system?

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Hi Mark

Pic is below, apologies its not great. My system is as in my signature below.

The Krell power amp is on the top as SWMBO(Sue) will not let me move the sofa to do so, its fine sat on 10 mm of toughened glass that can take 60kg. The Po-Ject TT below I love, a good ex-demo buy, the arm is a type of constrained uni-pivot and works very well, its completely adjustable and gets the detail out the vinyl. I think I would need to spend at least £10-15K on TT and arm to better it and probably only for marginal gains. The Hitachi tuner is £45 eBay purchase and is great, it was a giant killer back in its day and sounds great still.

Next down is the Krell pre-amp, added about 3 weeks ago, which has made a big difference to the overall SQ of the system, it has just opened the soundstage up and with more detail/depth and made it better overall. I have tried the on board phono stage but need to go back and try some other settings for MC, it sounded quite good but need another proper listen.

The RaspberryPi/HifiBerry Digi+Pro for streaming is tucked away at the back and goes by optical into the Marantz SACDs DAC, and this sounds quite good, good enough for the amount of streaming I do at present. The RPI/Digi+ is slightly modded and is powered by a linear PSU direct to the Digi+ board, and I have some config changes to get the best from it.

The Marantz SACD player is another bit of kit that sings IMO, it is quite rare I got it from a friend.

Below is the SUNILDA Phono stage, a lovely piece of kit, several well known reviewers praised it highly, it made a big difference to listening to vinyl, everything came alive. I have had several phonos over 8 years of various price points from a Cambridge Audio 651P£120) to a LFD MMC(£3.5K) that was a disappointment with MC and was prone to noise pickup and sensitive to leads used. A Sonneteer Sedley I had for about 9 months was great VFM and for the costingt £450(used) it was excellent. I have found that phono stages can make or break good vinyl reproduction.

The WB Vector speakers are the icing on top for me, I went through many speakers and amp combos until I got it right for me:doh:, the Krell power amp with them was a big step in the right direction, and adding the Krell pre has taken it to another level.

So that is it as it stands for now, I am tinkering with improving the streaming SQ but trying to keep it on a very low budget, I may have found a great solution the other day for around £200, but we will see. If money did not matter I'd buy a Novafidelity X40 or X45 for streaming and be done with it, but £2-2.5K is out of the question at the moment.

All the Best.

https://i.postimg.cc/2jt6hngt/IMG-1865.jpg

[Rush2112]

Hi Adrian,

Well you know my system has evolved over some 40 years, I bought my first seperates at 16, a Technics SLB2 Turntable Grado FCE+ cartridge, Technics SUV2 Amplifier and a pair of the original Mission 70 speakers with the offset tweeter. Since then I've owned:

6 Turntables
4 Arms
8 Cartridges
3 Phono Stages
5 Integrated Amps
4 Pre-amps
4 Power Amps
2 CD Players
3 Transports
4 DAC's
3 Cassette Decks
2 Tuners
7 Speakers
2 Subwoofers
And cables from Van den Hul, QED, Audioquest, DPA, Transparent, Silversounds, Siltech, Cogan Hall, Hi-Q Sound

My standouts over the time were:

Celestion SL6 loudspeakers,
Celestion SL600 System Speaker,
Sonus Faber Electa Amator mk1 speakers, Ortofon MC3000mk2 cartridge, Nakamichi RX505 cassette deck, Lumley Reference M120 monoblocks, Acoustic Research LS7 pre-amp, Pink Triangle Cardinal transport, DaCapo DAC, DC power supply.

Then my current system is pretty much as far as I am going give or take possibly Tansport and DAC, plus a change of cartridge when the Koetsu is ready for replacement maybe upgrade to a Urushi, or Hana Umami or Jasmine Dragon.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230201/eabe016d50777e3d66dd31da880a1a25.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230201/de774a331099ad85aa4301745d08a19c.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230201/20be0c3332bb7961cb1b80adaf423b42.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230201/3caa4c6fe17cff38689dafc28c40f73a.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230201/ca64192389baacf62bced852e45fcd24.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230201/9043ba9453aab20c0b07ae27eb6cc91b.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230201/bcfd12b601796fd0019149d097d58646.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230201/70450dc9bca43db9742086f320de0980.jpg

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[AJSki2fly]

Hi Mark

You've had some very nice gear.

I started my music and hifi journey back in the late 60's. initially a PYE valve world service radio, and a Grundig R/R to record the Top 20 and Luxembourg. Next a Bush record player Christmas 1970, followed a few years later by a cassette/tuner system, Icannot remember the make, In 1977 I got a Dual 504, and a Sansui amp and Monitor Audio Bookshelf speakers, that remained the same for a few years, although I added a Sansui tuner at some point. In 1985 we purchased an Aiwa stacking system, I am not sure why, wife friendly maybe, it was over £1k at the time, and surprisingly sounded quite good.

Around 1987 I purchased a Merdian 507-24bit CDP, Audio Innovations S500 valve amp, and Snell Ks with very heavy stands, I had that for many years until 1998 when the speakers were changed for KEF Reference 3.2 model 2's, 40th Birthday present. I had a Nakamichi Cassette deck for a few years, should have kept it, I became despondent with CD and digital in 2002 and sold nearly all the gear as I had stopped listening and went for a Technics surround amp system, keeping the KEFs as main speakers and Mission surrounds and Sub, this did fine for a while. then in 2010 I purchased a Mission 557 amp, Mission 562 surround processor, and 504 pre-amp, and 508 CDP, I drove the surrounds with a 4 channel car amp, which worked very well. Not sure why but a year later I sold the KEFs and changed them to Dali Ikon 6s, silly it was a room set up issue not the speakers.:doh:

We moved in 2013 and 18 months later I had heart problems, so had time at home to recover and start listening to music again. A friend was selling off his record collection and I got tempted and had about 50 of them, and purchased a Dual 506, then a few months later another friend sold me a Project Experience II he had in the loft with a Ortofon Rondo Blue. So I was in vinyl land again and spent many days looking around charity and 2nd hand shops, I was lucky and picked up around 500+ records in VG+ to NM (not he usual charity rubbish) for on average £3 each before prices rose. I was also given 4 small record collections by friends so another 400 or so records. I now have over 1600 records, of which 300 or so were purchased new.

So getting back into Vinyl started me back on SQ improvement ladder. The Meridian 557 power amp went for a pair of Renaiscance R01 300B mono power amps, which initially drove the Dali's , then Wilson Benesch ARCS, The RA01 amps were very sweet sounding but I had a couple of failing capacitor incidents, and so were changed for an Allnic T1500 300b integrated amp. the Project Experience II was replaced with a Michel Gyrodec with an SME MK IV arm and Michel Cusis cart. What a mistake that was, the TT was a resonant pile of pooh, I upgraded it to Orbe spec and did some suspension mods, it did improve but I was never happy, so I had a Voyd TT with 3 motors and used with the SME for a while, and then I replaced it with the Pro-Ject Signature 10 about a year later.

As mentionted before the Allnic amp caused me to go through various speakers until I admitted to myself it was at fault and I replaced it with the Krell finally driving the WB Vectors.

So that is more or less my Hifi journey, with a couple of speakers I played around with a pair of 1970 JBL 100's, Also a pair of excellent Chris Roger PRO-9 Transmission Line speakers, they were professionally built by a cabinet maker, and finished by a quite well known hifi reviewer who I got them from, they were his reference speakers for many years. these actually sounded very good, unfortunately they were not wife friendly, and I was made to move them out of the lounge went not being used, and so were moved onto another hifi buff.

So that is about it as far as my HiFi history is concerned.

All the best

Adrian

[Rush2112]

Some great gear, and a few names as a blast from the past Sansui, Snell, Audio Inovations and Voyd. I remember the Sansui Sr222 back in the day when Boots (yes, Boots the chemist) sold Hi-Fi, a limited few items but never the less they were some great bits of kit. I had the Audion Silver Knight 300B monoblocks but driving B&W Matrix 805 was not a match made in heaven, but the Lumleys were 120watts of pure joy with the Electa Amators.

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[Swann36]

Great posts and thread thanks for sharing

[AJSki2fly]

Great posts and thread thanks for sharing

Never sure if anyone is at all interested in knowing about my HiFi past, good and bad and stupidity, thanks for the feed back.:)

[Rush2112]

We've all made some Hi-Fi blunders!

Mine being stupid enough to think a pair of 300b triode monoblocks were going to be a match for B&W Matrix 805 speakers! https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230207/f9281d541921be0569029f0b9c05ec8b.jpg

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[Rush2112]

Fortunately or not depending on your point of view when they arrived they had terrible hum not noticed on the demo pair and when tested sure enough they were not right so they were returned for a full refund. Phew !!!

So they had to be replaced and what a great replacement!!

Lumley Reference M120 monoblocks https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230207/0c34ddd4a78328b1710221ece276ab74.jpg

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[Rush2112]

This combination with Audio Research LS7 was a marriage made in heaven, detail and slam with silky vocals shimmering brass and percussion.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230207/e89ee632af0b937abc624af3be685a5f.jpg

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