ProAc / Krell


Still on my search for hifi heaven!

Has anyone listened/own Krell KAV gear and ProAc D15 speakers?Can borrow the D15's but they are not run in yet.

Cheers.
seacat7
I don't want to steer you away from this combo. I am familiar with krell and proac. The brightness of th krell combined with the brightness of the proac tweeter. Ouch! The proac is so easy to drive and the krell is such a beast. The beauty of the proac is that you could get by with the lower powered tubes. Say cary 805 or atma-sphere s30 or 60. Take your krell and match it with an aerial or some other hard to drive beast. The good thing is you can't go worng with any of these combo's.
I drive ProAc Response 3.8 using a Krell Showcase Pre/Pro and a 300cx FPB amp. The bass is very well defined and though my room is somewhat small (21 x 12 x 9ft), it does take some juggling to get the lower frequencies right without to much boom. Mids are second to none, and the Krell seems to aid enormously in this department – I don’t think you could better the Mids with another amp! Highs can at times be a little on the bright side, but I know I have a little to longer RT60 (520ms) and that if I was to knock this back to something around 400 - 450 things would fall into place.

Go with the ProAc Krell combo, they do complement one another wonderfully. I guarantee you will be moved beyond words with top quality recordings.

Enjoy!
I auditioned pro ac d15,s with pass solid state preamp and amp, front accuphase cd, the speakers with only 2 hours on them. The sound was very transparent open detailed balanced with solid bass. There was no cold or sterile tendasies at all. even with low hours I felt this combo quite convincing . The only knock I could say is the didn,t image as good as some, it could improve with time
I didn't hear the combo but I would think the match would be nice. The d15 is different than the response 1.5 in therms of dynamics and the d15 is more involving.I think ss amps are more suitable than with the past proac models. Correct me if I am wrong.

As you said the proac need a fair amounth of breaking in. Don't juge it before that.
Having heard Krell gear in the past and being a ProAc owner I think this is not a good match. The type of people that own Krell and ProAc in general seem to have very different taste and priorities in music reproduction.

Krell owners seem to favor more neutral and powerful presentations while ProAc owners might be considered more the romantics. Also, many people, nyself included seem to think ProAcs do their best work when driven by tube amplification. The reason I say this is that ProAcs are known for their organic midrange, and a solid state amp like a Krell wouldn't work towards this strength, where as a tube amp more likely would.

I've tried Simaudio and Electrocompaniet amplification with ProAcs in the past and felt both sterilized the ProAcs to a certain extent. Introducing a tube DAC and a tube preamp into the mix and matching them with a slightly warm solid state amp produced a balance of power and warmth I really like. However, everything I've assembled in front of the ProAcs probably goes counter to what a Krell would produce.

Something to think about. Good luck.