Tim-You make some good points. And it’s true that the C2a and the PL-400 Series 2 amps were and are a revelation. They are the reason I sold my Counterpoint SA-5.1 and my Jadis Defy 7 MKII. They simply sounded better in my system. It was a very humbling experience. So my thought process was that if I could pull that off with some cheap SS gear from yesteryear, what could I pull off with over $10K worth of SS gear (price when new)?
The ironic thing is that the SS gear from yesteryear works great and my noise floor has never been lower. The hum from my KSA-250 is no longer setting the noise floor of my system. I think if one was to go back and read all of the original posts I made about the Krell gear, the hum was an issue from the beginning. I mitigated it somewhat with the PC from Krell, and the level of hum changes from time to time which I find odd and irritating.
I also don’t think I ever said the Krell gear blew away my C2a or PL amps or anything close to that. The PL amps sound “lighter” than the KSA-250, but not in the white and bright sense. The KSA-250 is balanced on the dark side which tends to emphasize its bottom end and mid bass capabilities. When you shell out a bunch of money, send gear off to its maker to be repaired and recapped, you want it to be better than what you have. That was the whole point. The reality just doesn’t always play along with your expectations if you are honest with yourself. The flip side of that is when you can’t believe how something sounds so damn good that you bought for next to nothing and you think you must be deluding yourself.
