how much does a smaller krell differ from a hi end sansui 907

A pair of 8inch diy audax drivers and alcone tweeters in a cabinet that weighs 25kilos. Sooper sized bookshelf speakers .
. 92db .and 70 watts, almost home made .
But very pleasing .
I sold my klipsch RF3s 3 yrs ago when i demoed these next to em.
 
A pair of 8inch diy audax drivers and alcone tweeters in a cabinet that weighs 25kilos. Sooper sized bookshelf speakers .
. 92db .and 70 watts, almost home made .
But very pleasing .
I sold my klipsch RF3s 3 yrs ago when i demoed these next to em.
Bringing this one back, now with more info.

Did you get a chance to audition the Krell vs. the Sansui? As to the drivability of the Mezzas, shouldn't be a problem they do sensitivity: 92.5dB/2.83V/1m. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms (EN 60065). Minimum impedance: 3.8 ohms. Recommended power is 50-250. One thing about speakers today is they can handle more power than in the past, generally.
 
IMO i have tested a number of sansui amps from the 70 ties to late 80 ties. only the early 70s sansui models had the golden audio qualities which diminished slowly with the increase of power with commercial audio world. The 80s models are totally out of touch.

I am with you on the glory of Sansui 70s gear. Just want to point out that I've finally dipped my toes into some of the better 90s Sansui gear and IMO they got back to the 70s sound at the end. In fact at comparable power levels the new stuff is almost indistinguishable from my AU-777A in double blind.

Of course the big Krells will drive almost anything which can't be said of the Sansui units. With more regular loads I think many will be surprised with how similar well designed (and sorry, but that does include many Sansui) amps sound in double blind. Even with an amp selector box instantly switching between the amp you will find it hard in many cases.

The Sansui circuit designs were certainly within economic limitations which limits performance in extreme, but were not limited in design quality.Actually Sansui was probably a leader in circuit design. Even to this day their ideas are getting reused and reinvented from diamond diff to super-feedforward (even saw the later used in an NSOM (near-field scanning optical microscope) research paper recently). Outside of extreme power/speaker demand situations the differences are not as big as many think. Double-blind tests on my end have 'been there and done that'. I've compared the Sansui gear to various big amps including Krell, ME (defunct Australian brand), ML, McIntosh, etc. And I measure on the bench too... once you get past the era of strong voicing of amps (which seems to last up to some point in early 80s), there isn't much difference between well designed amps, under usual operation. As Nelson Pass says, good amps mostly behave the same under normal conditions; it's how they misbehave that is where the differences are.

I don't post too much about all of that (Sansui vs the big boys) because I think one has to really experience it to believe it. Without that experience, you are unlikely to convince either party. But I do talk a lot about Sansui vs Sansui, because that's what people are here in this forum for :).

While Botrytis and I have some different points of view I like to think we could debate this all over a cold beer and have a nice chat. One thing Botrytis is right about IMO is the need for double bind testing. I basically don't listen to anything on this forum anymore about amp flavour and comparisons unless the poster mentions double blind AND amp selector box. All of my amp comparison tests are done blind and with amp selector box. Without double blind I sometimes get it right, if I'm using the amp selector box going between the amp instantly, but without the selector and double blind I often get it wildly wrong. E.g. Recently I swore my newly acquired alpha-907limited was bright and lacking bass in comparison to a smaller underdog. I thought that for a week until I inserted double-blind and amp box, and there was not much in it at all. I was surprised myself when I realized how much I let my underdog champion mentality get in the way. I've been doing amp comparisons since the early 90s and I thought I could let my experience bypass the need for the proper amp comparison procedure for a week as I moved my setup around. I was wrong.

As I wrote in an earlier post, I have had various big amps and have come full circle back to smaller vintage stuff. Each to their own (depending on your speaker load and volume requirements :) ).
 
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Wow. What a reply.
A very well respected and late tech here once said , go with the mini watts upper tier vintage amps from these brands and forget about sooper heavy weight amps . You will lose musicality in the larger beasts .
 
I am with you on the glory of Sansui 70s gear. Just want to point out that I've finally dipped my toes into some of the better 90s Sansui gear and IMO they got back to the 70s sound at the end. In fact at comparable power levels the new stuff is almost indistinguishable from my AU-777A in double blind.

Of course the big Krells will drive almost anything which can't be said of the Sansui units. With more regular loads I think many will be surprised with how similar well designed (and sorry, but that does include many Sansui) amps sound in double blind. Even with an amp selector box instantly switching between the amp you will find it hard in many cases.

The Sansui circuit designs were certainly within economic limitations which limits performance in extreme, but were not limited in design quality.Actually Sansui was probably a leader in circuit design. Even to this day their ideas are getting reused and reinvented from diamond diff to super-feedforward (even saw the later used in an NSOM (near-field scanning optical microscope) research paper recently). Outside of extreme power/speaker demand situations the differences are not as big as many think. Double-blind tests on my end have 'been there and done that'. I've compared the Sansui gear to various big amps including Krell, ME (defunct Australian brand), ML, McIntosh, etc. And I measure on the bench too... once you get past the era of strong voicing of amps (which seems to last up to some point in early 80s), there isn't much difference between well designed amps, under usual operation. As Nelson Pass says, good amps mostly behave the same under normal conditions; it's how they misbehave that is where the differences are.

I don't post too much about all of that (Sansui vs the big boys) because I think one has to really experience it to believe it. Without that experience, you are unlikely to convince either party. But I do talk a lot about Sansui vs Sansui, because that's what people are here in this forum for :).

While Botrytis and I have some different points of view I like to think we could debate this all over a cold beer and have a nice chat. One thing Botrytis is right about IMO is the need for double bind testing. I basically don't listen to anything on this forum anymore about amp flavour and comparisons unless the poster mentions double blind AND amp selector box. All of my amp comparison tests are done blind and with amp selector box. Without double blind I sometimes get it right, if I'm using the amp selector box going between the amp instantly, but without the selector and double blind I often get it wildly wrong. E.g. Recently I swore my newly acquired alpha-907limited was bright and lacking bass in comparison to a smaller underdog. I thought that for a week until I inserted double-blind and amp box, and there was not much in it at all. I was surprised myself when I realized how much I let my underdog champion mentality get in the way. I've been doing amp comparisons since the early 90s and I thought I could let my experience bypass the need for the proper amp comparison procedure for a week as I moved my setup around. I was wrong.

As I wrote in an earlier post, I have had various big amps and have come full circle back to smaller vintage stuff. Each to their own (depending on your speaker load and volume requirements :) ).

Well said. Ayre Acoustics implements the the Diamond Differential and Benchmark Media utilizes Feed-Forward error correction. What's old is new again.

The only point I would add to the blind test comment is that I still feel that long term listening should also be taken into account. I've done several blind test and while very useful, blind tests are instantaneous comparisons so sometimes differences can be missed. They can identify glaring differences but sometimes differences in overall presentation can be missed unless you go over the same section of a track repeatedly. I think it's also beneficial to listen to a system for a while and them switch to another. Assuming the content, source, speaker, positioning, etc. remain the same the listener may be surprised at the differences in overall presentation. You become accustomed to a specific sound/presentation and then- sometimes hear another and think, "hey, wait a minute- my other amp doesn't make these tracks sound like that" or "what is it with this amp that makes me want to keep listening?"

With that said, I run modern well regarded high-end resolving speakers and I would put my restored/refurbished AU-X1 up against just about any modern amp. To your point, IMO the amp section on the X1 is not easy to beat and the fact that I can run it without the pre-amp is a plus (as I have just learned, using it in a setting which basically amounts to a passive volume control). A magnificent machine, too bad I can't have all skeptics over for a listen and a beer. I think there'd be some change of hearts.
 
Wow. What a reply.
A very well respected and late tech here once said , go with the mini watts upper tier vintage amps from these brands and forget about sooper heavy weight amps . You will lose musicality in the larger beasts .

There are some sweet sounding larger beasts for sure; no disrespect to them. And when I ran magnepans, I needed them. In my present avatar can be seen one such amp, with 5,500kVa transformer, 103x 3000uF filter caps (what you see in avatar pic is only top row of filter caps, there is another level below). Now I run mostly efficient speakers, and I'm finding my little Sansui HF-V60 amps (just over 10W/channel) are more than enough.

Well said. Ayre Acoustics implements the the Diamond Differential and Benchmark Media utilizes Feed-Forward error correction. What's old is new again.

The only point I would add to the blind test comment is that I still feel that long term listening should also be taken into account. I've done several blind test and while very useful, blind tests are instantaneous comparisons so sometimes differences can be missed. They can identify glaring differences but sometimes differences in overall presentation can be missed unless you go over the same section of a track repeatedly. I think it's also beneficial to listen to a system for a while and them switch to another. Assuming the content, source, speaker, positioning, etc. remain the same the listener may be surprised at the differences in overall presentation. You become accustomed to a specific sound/presentation and then- sometimes hear another and think, "hey, wait a minute- my other amp doesn't make these tracks sound like that" or "what is it with this amp that makes me want to keep listening?"

With that said, I run modern well regarded high-end resolving speakers and I would put my restored/refurbished AU-X1 up against just about any modern amp. To your point, IMO the amp section on the X1 is not easy to beat and the fact that I can run it without the pre-amp is a plus (as I have just learned, using it in a setting which basically amounts to a passive volume control). A magnificent machine, too bad I can't have all skeptics over for a listen and a beer. I think there'd be some change of hearts.

100% agree on the long term tests. But I still think they should be mostly blind and with amp selector box, even in long term comparisons. Not practical I know! When I setup for amp comparisons I have a dedicated 4 tier rack, and I A/B/C/D for at least a few weeks before swapping in a new component; you are right, it's easy to miss things at first that aren't super obvious. I don't see any of that an argument against blind testing though.

Have never heard the AU-X1 but I do have 4 AU-X11. Lovely amp. I will move my further thoughts over to my amp comparison thread though, and stop hijacking this one :)
 
To your point, IMO the amp section on the X1 is not easy to beat and the fact that I can run it without the pre-amp is a plus (as I have just learned, using it in a setting which basically amounts to a passive volume control).

PS. I would put the preamp up against just about anything too. The phono amp in particular is really special no matter which price point you are talking.
 
PS. I would put the preamp up against just about anything too. The phono amp in particular is really special no matter which price point you are talking.

Agreed. That beast of a phono section is unlike anything I've seen in any integrated unit. It will even put a majority of external phono stages to shame. Just that section alone, designed as it was, boxed separately would command some serious coin today.
 
I personally would rather have this....

momentum_integrated_7.jpg

Magnificent!! ... and $45,000.00 dollars.

I was going to compare this to buying a car, but this will retain a higher resale value as years pass and you don't have to insure it.

I'm coming around. :trebon:
 
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