krell ksa100 vs. audio research 150.2

the pre amp is a nad 1600. im not sure what you mean by upgrade path? my budget is 800-1500$. i would like to have a much better stage and instrument clarety, i would like a little more base w/o a powered sub if i can help it. i also have a oppo cd player i use.
the sourse was a cd player from a burned cd off of the ethernet. and he was using definitive tech speakers the ones for 1k each.
i tried using the marantz with the oppo it was a little better and a little louder, but nothing that would make me sit down and liten to my collection again. that is what i am looking for and a amp that i can say o.k. i dont have to worry about that piece being the weak link, when upgrading.
thanks for your opinions bryon

am i going to get the same sound( articulation and power) from a kav300r as a ksa100 or a kst 100. why is the ksa and kst so much heavier and i assume hotter?
to anyone and thanks to everynone

If you can get the ksa-100 for $1000 it's much better for your Vandersteens. I had a kst-100 and now I have an Audio Research 100.2 on Vandersteen 2Ce and it's no comparison. The Audio Research is much better. To appreciate any improvement in amps you have to forget sattelite radio except for casual listening.

thanks digepix, so the ar is better than both the ksa and the kst?
thanks bryon

You will not get the same sound out of the KAV300r as you will out of the KSA100. The 300 R is a Krell budget component and in my opinion is not much better than many other similar types of components (Rotel, etc. . .). The KSA is a lot heavier because it has a properly designed power supply. With an amp, the power supply is one of, if not, the main component in terms of delivering performance.

As to the AR being better than the Krell, this is subjective. Secondly, keep in mind if you go with the AR you will need to replace tubes on a fairly fixed schedule (to be safe, lets say every 2 years). You better get the tubes from AR (all matched, etc. . . you could read a lot of the "up-in-smoke" stories about these amps and not using properly matched tubes). Replacing these tubes, I think, is currently about $700-800 + shipping the unit to and from AR (Minnesota). It doesn't sound like you want to set this type of budget for yourself and you should be aware of this upfront. Also, if you are getting the AR amp at a very good price, you can expect to have to replace the tubes right away, so factor that into what you are paying.

That being said, the AR tubed amps (several models) are great sounding amps. I am not suggesting in any way that they are not. They are also fairly reliable, assuming you maintain them properly!