Krell K-300i

I was less than thrilled by Editor-in-Chief Jim Austin’s suggestion to review the solid-state Krell K-300i integrated amplifier ($7000, plus an additional $1000 for the optional DAC). I had recently reviewed another $7000 integrated amplifier, the quite different hybrid Aesthetix Mimas,¹ and while I ended up liking the Mimas a whole lot, I felt decidedly lukewarm about having to recalibrate expectations for another integrated, especially one that costs far less than my reference Dan D’Agostino Progression monoblocks ($38,000/pair) and whose DAC option is a fraction of the price of my reference dCS Rossini DAC/Clock combination ($31,498 plus cables). How good could it be?

There’s something happening here²

There were also lingering questions about what had happened to Krell after its founders and co-owners, Dan and Rondi D’Agostino, were axed by an investor who, in the words of Krell’s present-day COO Walter Schofield, “did not respect the legacy of the brand.” Eventually, Schofield reports, the investor “walked away from the company.”

Since Dan had already moved on and founded Dan D’Agostino Master Audio Systems, his former wife, Rondi, repurchased Krell in May 2016. After Schofield proposed a new business plan that would address reliability and performance issues, he came onboard as COO. The first all-new product from the re-envisioned and reinvigorated company, the Krell K-300i integrated amplifier, was released in early 2019 as the successor to Krell’s US-manufactured Vanguard integrated amplifier. That I had nothing to worry about (as if it were possible for a Jewish only child not to worry) became clear when I heard the K-300i shortly after its release, during Graham Audio’s launch of their LS5/9f loudspeaker at Gig Harbor Audio near Seattle. After spending