"Krell" is a buzzword

The way I see it is that Krell is well marketed and "expensive", and for any audiophile reading the ads and reviews, Krell is in your face to the extent that you are under pressure to aspire to own a Krell. A lot of the marketing is just about that - getting new audiophiles to aspire to a Krell so you catch them later when they are ready to buy. This is not dissimilar to branding of BMW, Rolex etc. The flipside is that the pressure to aspire to it can also cause people to prefer to "bag" it rather than aspire to it. This polarised reaction is typical of heavily marketed products. It is true that some of the motivation to "bag" Krell is to make people that cannot afford it feel better about this fact, but it is not the only reason. If Krell was merely rubbish, this would not result in the emotional negative feelings about it. If Krell was merely rubbish, it would engender the same feelings as audiophiles have for Bose. The fact that many audiophiles have clearly not only aspired to Krell but also like it means that Krells must sound OK too. If I was Krell, I would be pretty happy about the polarised response - far better that than a luke-warm one.

Dekay, how can you type sitting in front of your computer, while trying to listen to music at the same time? Wouldn't you be out of the "sweet spot" of you system set up...which we all have spent too much money trying to achieve in the first place? Sounds ironic to me.

Margin, you are one to talk about showing off money. "Margin Call", an obvious bragadocia, that you either own many stocks, or are a broker, or are pretending same. I should call myself "got it all", and then I would be like you. I'm just getting started in the stock market. Is a gain of 5000% in a single day a good time to sell that stock? I need to know, because I now have more money than sense, and am contacting Bill Gates to ask if he'll shine my shoes for me....

Garfish...sorry to have offended. You obviously hold Trelja in very high esteem and feel the need to come to his defense. But you miss my point. I have been a serious audiophile for 25 years and I do not see the value of threads like this. That's my opinion. I regularily read numerous audio publications and the only place I see all of this Krell bashing, not to mention the bashing of several other well regarded aduio companies, is on Audiogon. Cornfedboy said it well...buzzard words indeed! Krell and other companies like them would not be where they are today if they were making junk, and while it may not be to everyones taste it is obviously quality equipment. If there is something seriously wrong with a company's product or really bad customer service then that is something worth knowing about, but that is not the case here. You may have great respect for Trejla and value his opinions, which is fine by me, but I find nothing particularily intelligent about this post and feel it only adds fuel to an argument that does nothing to further the enjoyment of this hobby. And Craig, I do on occasion post an opinion on Audiogon, but it is usually in response to a specific question about some audio gear I have had personal experience with and never to bash it. Even if I did post all the time would that necessarily make me any more credible to you or anyone else. I think it only would if you happened to agree with my opinions. And I have not judged you or any others based on the number of postings on Audiogon. By the way, and for what it's worth, I have never owned any Krell equipment (I own a pair of BEL amps,a Modulus 3A preamp, a Audio Logic DAC, and an EAR phono preamp), but I have auditioned some and thought it was very good.

Hi Margin: I have our second mini system hooked up at the computer station now, soon to be set up for near field listening (all I need is a pair of 30" stands). Before, the computer was set up in the living room with the main system ($2500.00 total for the whole ball of wax -w- some of the items purchased used). I am not hooked on the sweet spot and always try to set the better system up so that it sounds its best in a general seating area. We are talking about 10% off axis at the most for the extremes of the entire listening area. If I feel like doing critical listening or when I am auditioning something new at home I just move a chair into a near field arrangement for that purpose. Some speakers like Maganapans and my old Castle's sound good to me slightly off axis, maybe because thay are a little bright for my taste to start with. Also interesting for near field listening at the computer are some little DIY planer speakers at the Decware web site that I would like to try to build at some point and use with a flea watt amp that I would run the mini system through. I at one point ran the mini system through my Musical Fidelity amp and the cheap little five disk CD player sounded pretty good. The tape decks sounded well, like tape decks. I also tweaked the mini system with Vibrapods, Kimber Kable and some sound damping (sticky) sheets that my mechanic gave me installed to the inside of the CD tape player module The speakers were replaced with Polk Rt-15's that were being given away locally when the new version came out. The system itself is a Sony MHC-NX1 that is very handy for my wife's old massive collection of CD's that I wouln't bother playing on the main system due to their background noise and general lack of high fidelity.