Symphonic Line

[AudioLibertarian]

AudioLibertarian,

@AudioLibertarian i'm also in nyc. my unit isnt prewar but installing 20amps is still a pain (an electrician quoted me $800). for various other reasons i bought a torus avr unit. not their big in wall or in floor unit but one of the standalone ones thats a model below it or so. i'm able to run the kraft as well as most of my other gear (due to space/set up the taiko is a bit farther away on a separate outlet) through it with no sense of dynamic compression or anything like that. it lowered the noise floor quite nicely and i would reccommend it to a lot of my fellow city dwellers. it was certainly an upgrade over some hospital grade extrension chords i was using at the time, though my system had different gear back then. happy to answer more questions about that

Are you using both amps into one Torus? Do you know what is their power consumption at max? 1800 watt is enough? I know they are very high current designs. As far as power conditioners I d suggest Audio MAgic units, as IMHO those are the best such units for the high current units such as Krafts..... With one caveat that these Audio MAgic units need two power cords and you better use the lower gauge ones too, so one more issue to worry about for the obsessive compulsive among us

 

[jonaiken]

@Skanda - thank you for adding your experience. mine were manufactured earlier in the year too and I agree with the comments regarding dynamics, inner detailing, and soundstage. I hope to share a write up soon but i've been working 15hrs/day 6 days a week recently so i havent had time for much else. however, as things ease up i will deff put my thoughts together. also, in my experience, the Taiko and SL have this crazy synergy (very unexpected and odd given server and amp - maybe its just letting more through to the amp or something) - as a fellow owner of the combo, would you agree? i feel the extreme brings that same type of sound to a system.

Skanda, I definitely agree, the Taiko Extreme and SL Components compliment each other so well. Both provide a realistic presentation of what was recorded. The Taiko Extreme is the best digital source/server I have experienced graduating up from the Innuos Statement and the Antipodes DX3. The Taiko Extreme sound is organic and breathes life into the music providing a concert hall or studio experience.

@Skanda - I had been talking to klaus about the rg3 with turbo. what pre did you have before and how would you describe the synergy. i'm currently using a soulution 721 and love the pairing. trouble with SL here is that i have to buy blind so I haven't had a chance to experience the rg3.

Skanda, I owned the Audio Research Reference 10 preamps (Line and Phono Stages) which are both phenomenal and well regarded preamplifiers. The SL RG3 Mk5 and Phono Reference HD preamplifiers with the Turbo Power Supplies are more detailed with a bigger soundstage than the Ref. 10’s, which is ARC’s trademark. I learned in this hobby synergy is critical for great sound. Having the full line of SL components along with some great sources like the Taiko Extreme and my TA Master Reference provides that synergy. I always loved ARC’s tube sound and thought I would miss the magic of tubes with going to the Symphonic Line. Au contraire, the Symphonic Line provides a ‘liquid sound“ that is tube like but with extraordinary inner detail, dynamics, and accurate tonal balance. The sound is so layered providing superb 3D dimensionality bringing reality to each listening session. You can‘t go wrong with the SL products.

 

[Skanda]

Skanda, I definitely agree, the Taiko Extreme and SL Components compliment each other so well. Both provide a realistic presentation of what was recorded. The Taiko Extreme is the best digital source/server I have experienced graduating up from the Innuos Statement and the Antipodes DX3. The Taiko Extreme sound is organic and breathes life into the music providing a concert hall or studio experience.



Skanda, I owned the Audio Research Reference 10 preamps (Line and Phono Stages) which are both phenomenal and well regarded preamplifiers. The SL RG3 Mk5 and Phono Reference HD preamplifiers with the Turbo Power Supplies are more detailed with a bigger soundstage than the Ref. 10’s, which is ARC’s trademark. I learned in this hobby synergy is critical for great sound. Having the full line of SL components along with some great sources like the Taiko Extreme and my TA Master Reference provides that synergy. I always loved ARC’s tube sound and thought I would miss the magic of tubes with going to the Symphonic Line. Au contraire, the Symphonic Line provides a ‘liquid sound“ that is tube like but with extraordinary inner detail, dynamics, and accurate tonal balance. The sound is so layered providing superb 3D dimensionality bringing reality to each listening session. You can‘t go wrong with the SL products.

Great to hear, I'll have to restart that conversation with Klaus early next year. I'm in the market for some cables too so maybe I should ask about the gronenberg. My kraft came with 2 cables but unforunately those were shucko plugs and the shucko to us converter was damaged in shipping. i've had some arc components and heard some others, if you're saying the SL can sound stage bigger...wow!

Honestly, audiophiles in the u.s. are sleeping on this brand. Really incredible stuff.

 

[caesar]

Gentlemen, one thing to add here is as incredible as Kraft 250s and Kraft 300s are, Kraft 400s are on another level.

Anyone who needs a solid state amplifier, which is pretty much everyone running modern, inefficient box speakers (unless they like syrupy tube sound - as tube amps other than CAT can't properly drive modern box speakers), and who wants organic sound, and who's got the money, should reach out to Rolf to build them some Kraft 400s.

Nothing like Kraft 400s, really. Life is not fair.

 

[caesar]

Think Porsche 911 Turbo vs. Porsche 918 Spyder

 

[rpk]

Hello,
There is actually little to read about – Kraft - amplifiers worldwide.

In 1984 a new - Kraft 100 - could find me = http://www.vernissage-laboratorium.de/kraft-100/

Combined with phenomenal (really) Echnaton (Akhenaten) - http://www.vernissage-laboratorium.de/echnaton/ , that was a measure of all things back then.

And an optically inconspicuous preamplifier - Atmosphäre - http://www.vernissage-laboratorium.de/atmosphare/

The construction and detailed integration was carried out by Felix Klinkenberg at that time (over weeks in countless nights), in the following text more about him.

The loudspeaker cables were hand-soldered with hundreds of individual wires from cables that were centimeter thick, which were used in telephone exchanges almost 40 years ago …….

The original “audio brain” behind Kraft was Felix Klinkenberg. I once ran the text of his homepage via google transfer and maybe the content is new for some Kraft users today
http://www.vernissage-laboratorium.de/mein-weg-zu-vernissage/

My way to the vernissage
When the child starts playing with wires, light bulbs and batteries at a young age, and then, when they get older, starts experimenting with old radios and loudspeakers ...

An attempt to motivate the boy to train with his uncle, an old Bauhaus architect, fails. At least during this time I internalized the philosophy on which the Bauhaus was based and attended my first classical music concerts with him. (At Wagner performances the dignitaries asleep blissfully ... at the fortissimo they were startled ...). The family council decided the boy had to do something with electricity.

So I completed an electrician apprenticeship. At that time, friends from the click wanted to start a rock band. Everyone should adopt an instrument. Everyone agreed I should play the keyboards, especially since I could raise the cash I needed. However, I decided to do the technical part with a PA and the mixing. A friend of mine from vocational school was also enthusiastic about the idea and so we did the technology and management for the band. She called herself New Sekt and later renamed herself Alma Ata. After that I became a founding member of one of the first municipalities in Duisburg. I was there at almost all concerts or open airs with progressive music all over Europe.

With a Telefunken Mr. Hit (stereo) and the then high-quality Shit I experienced music in a special resolution and intensity. After this impulse I looked for ways to realize this experience in a technical way.
In my job as an electronics technician at Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) I was confronted with music recording and playback again. There I worked with studio equipment from AEG Telefunken, AKG, Altec Lansing, Bayer Dynamic, EMT-Thorens, Klein & Hummel, Neumann, Nagra, Studer-Revox, Shure and Stellavox.
After that I was employed by Siemens. I quickly submitted suggestions for improvement, but they were not acknowledged. So I had to skip hierarchies in the group and contact the head of the Essen branch directly. After accepting my suggestions, I received good advice from him that I should start studying.

I started studying electrical engineering in Cologne and was lucky enough to meet a lecturer who was previously research director at Rhode & Schwarz and who obviously didn't want to expose himself to the ignorance of the merchants. His most important tenet burned itself into me:

“Never trust scientific doctrines. See for yourself whether they are valid under all parameters. "

After graduating, I came back to Duisburg. With the first job advertisements I found an interesting advertisement: Looking for managing directors to set up a HiFi studio. At the interview, the owner reported that he was negotiating with an industry expert who had owned a hi-fi studio himself and that they were as good as agreed. During the conversation, his eyes kept wandering to my portfolio that I had on the table in front of me. At the end of the conversation he asked what the folder was all about. Then I told him that was the concept for his hi-fi studio. After looking through the folder, he asked when I could start. My answer: immediately.

The concept was based on the combination of three chains. A chain in the lower, one in the middle and one in the high price segment, which I wanted to put together according to qualitative criteria. The individual components should be selected in such a way that they could also be used across chains.

So I went to my first radio exhibition in Berlin. The exhibitors reacted quite astonished that I not only wanted to hear the components in the usual way and then also to hear them. During this time I dealt intensively with the components of Acoustic Research, AKG, ASC, B&O, Empire, Harman Kardon, Nakamichi, Pioneer, SAE, Toshiba, from these manufacturers I selected the usable components for my music playback chains.
In order to bring people closer to experiencing music, we organized the first in-house exhibitions in Duisburg's Mercatorhalle.
During my intensive work on playback technology, I realized that many manufacturers (all?) Did not take into account fundamental physical laws.
An example: the thin loudspeaker cables that everyone used at the time did not meet the requirements that I placed on a loudspeaker cable. So I looked for a manufacturer who could make the cables I needed. I received a single stranded cable with a cross-section of 4 mm from the Leonische Kabelwerke. This enabled me to achieve better music reproduction for my customers. My customers reported comments from many hi-fi gurus: What is this nonsense, the wall to the socket is only 1.5 mm away!
One of these customers was Rolf Gemein. After some intensive consultations and demonstrations and the continuous construction of his hi-fi system, the idea matured that something should be done together. We, that was Rolf Gemein, Peter Bode (an employee in the hi-fi studio) and me. By a lucky coincidence, I was able to get into the lease of a customer because he could not avoid a change of location. When I was working on the customer systems and working with devices of all quality classes, it quickly became clear to me where the greatest weak point of all systems was: the power amplifier. In the course of the work, the amplifiers with ML 2Class A technology emerged as the most likely target-oriented: the power amplifiers from Mark Levinson, those from Stax and M22 of course the M22 from Pioneer. The main weak point of these devices was an insufficient nominal power. This meant that they could not adequately control the performance-guzzling loudspeakers. So the talks began with companies that could possibly supply parts for the construction of a new power amplifier, the Kraft 100. The only material that could be used for the basic housing was that there was no need to fear magnetic distortions. So I got in touch with the largest case manufacturer, Knürr. The basic housing was designed with a customer service engineer. narrow

Now we were faced with the biggest problem: A heat sink in the performance class that was needed for power did not exist anywhere in the world. After exploring several companies, the Austerlitz company was found that was ready to develop a heat sink in this performance class. We now run a hi-fi studio at Luisenstrasse 28.

The first Kraft 100 was completed shortly before the 1980 HiFi exhibition in Düsseldorf. It was already too late to get a stand at the fair. What do you do in such a situation? I knew that power would most likely display its advantages on a loudspeaker that was generally considered difficult. I noticed the Electrostatic 1 Beverige loudspeaker from Harold Beveridge. It had the legendary reputation that with the highest quality level there would be no power amplifier with enough power for you, but that it would be destroyed if too much (uncontrolled!) Power. During a visit to the demonstration, I asked whether they could imagine an even better rendering of their electrostatic device and that we had a completely redesigned power amplifier in the car. They listened to the Kraft 100 and demonstrated with it until the end of the mass. There some experts heard our final stage and that was the beginning of the public history of the Vernissage Laboratorium from Duisburg.
To which I am committed to this day.

The combination of Kraft / Vernissage components also reached its own standard in the 80s.

Many greetings from Rainer

 

[Skanda]

@rpk, super interesting - great find and thanks for sharing
@caesar, with how amazing my kraft 300 sounds i would have no hesitation jumping on a pair of 400 monos from rolf should the opportunity arrive. if i move to a bigger place - which is likely and a big part of whats impacting my current audio plans - i will certainly ask klaus about the 400 monos. they might be a bit pricey for me though

 

[Justlisten]

Tubes are my strong preference, EL34 based, but having heard the SL RG1 Mk3 at a friends home on several occasions, the SL and Plinius amps are pretty much the only SS amps I could live long term with.

I do however own the RG6 TT, which is a keeper.

 

[jonaiken]

@rpk, super interesting - great find and thanks for sharing
@caesar, with how amazing my kraft 300 sounds i would have no hesitation jumping on a pair of 400 monos from rolf should the opportunity arrive. if i move to a bigger place - which is likely and a big part of whats impacting my current audio plans - i will certainly ask klaus about the 400 monos. they might be a bit pricey for me though

Skanda, you say no hesitation jumping to the 400 monos - just remember the Kraft 400’s are 260 lbs each. Your back may say something different

 

[Skanda]

Skanda, you say no hesitation jumping to the 400 monos - just remember the Kraft 400’s are 260 lbs each. Your back may say something different

good point, something i had not considered. of course the ac to keep the room cool is another few hundred pounds as well lol

 

[jonaiken]

good point, something i had not considered. of course the ac to keep the room cool is another few hundred pounds as well lol

So True ..... Although I will say the Kraft 300’s run pretty cool and are easy on the back. BTW I am looking to order a Kraft 300 Stereo amp to bi-amp my speakers, putting the Stereo amp on the bass drivers and the Kraft 300 Mono’s to the drive the mid/high‘s. I confirmed the output of Stereo amp is the same as the Mono’s eliminating the need for an active electronic crossover. The net result should yield a major improvement in my sound which is already pretty fantastic.

 

[AudioLibertarian]

So True ..... Although I will say the Kraft 300’s run pretty cool and are easy on the back. BTW I am looking to order a Kraft 300 Stereo amp to bi-amp my speakers, putting the Stereo amp on the bass drivers and the Kraft 300 Mono’s to the drive the mid/high‘s. I confirmed the output of Stereo amp is the same as the Mono’s eliminating the need for an active electronic crossover. The net result should yield a major improvement in my sound which is already pretty fantastic.

How you going to split the source signal? Using rca adapters , or your preamp's two sets of outputs? You may end up with phase shifts & other problems if the adapters are NOT high quality enough & not-compatible with your IC cables, or, in case of the preamp's two pairs of outs you may encounter problem with cohesiveness. Spoken from my own humbling experience... You may want to do passive vertical bi-ampling, with the two stereo units, although pros and cons of such method are highly contested in audio circles, but in my experience with the SL & Classe DR-3 amps, the passive vertical bi amping could be more desirable than using 2 monos and one stereo unit.

 

[jonaiken]

How you going to split the source signal? Using rca adapters , or your preamp's two sets of outputs? You may end up with phase shifts & other problems if the adapters are NOT high quality enough & not-compatible with your IC cables, or, in case of the preamp's two pairs of outs you may encounter problem with cohesiveness. Spoken from my own humbling experience... You may want to do passive vertical bi-ampling, with the two stereo units, although pros and cons of such method are highly contested in audio circle, but in my experience with the SL & Classe DR-3 amps, the passive vertical bi amping could be more desirable than using 2 monos and one stereo unit.

Thanks AudioLibertarian for your response My initial thought was to use the two pair of preamps outputs. Looks like I have rethink my approach.

 

[AudioLibertarian]

Thanks AudioLibertarian for your response My initial thought was to use the two pair of preamps outputs. Looks like I have rethink my approach.

Well, I have not used SL preamp in my trials, so I don't know how it outputs its gain into two sets of outputs. As any good audio specialist worth his repute will tell you, for the best bi amping results in systems like yours is to have a SINGLE source signal using splitter RCA, (or balanced adapters) and you would need to test them with your ICs first to hear to what extent these degrade the signal , or where losses&distortions occur. And you should NEVER use crappy adapters either, these better use the wire that is "related' to your IC and the RCA jacks better be all high end Cardas . Its actually quite an elaborate set up, using lots of trials and listening tests to see whether the set up truly worth it. Talk to Klaus and Rolf nonetheless. My dealer has set up few of those systems using two pairs SL RG-4 monoblocks (which are also awesome by the way) in bi amped configuration in New Jersey, so when the set up is done right & well integrated the results are very, very good.

 

[p59teitel]

Tubes are my strong preference, EL34 based, but having heard the SL RG1 Mk3 at a friends home on several occasions, the SL and Plinius amps are pretty much the only SS amps I could live long term with.

I do however own the RG6 TT, which is a keeper.

Nice to find this thread here after a long absence from the site. Justlisten, it's funny you mention Plinius - before SL entered my system (first via a completely rebuilt Enlightenement tube, then Kraft 250 monos then finally the Belcanto CDP with added DAC), I was using a Plinius M8 pre and SB-301 stereo amp. They actually played quite nicely with my Revels indeed, although the SL gear really does bring a whole other level of listening pleasure.

 

[jonaiken]

News From Symphonic Line

For the 40th anniversary, there's something on your ears.
In 2021 marks the anniversary of the Kraft 300, which was the first time to marvel at 40 years. And in line with this anniversary there is, the new one
Kraft 300 MK-3 Class A. What a hunk, I'd love to listen to it once...
If you have questions or want a listening appointment, please contact Symphonic Line Tel. 0203 31 56 56. There's something to listen to for the 40th anniversary. 2021 is the anniversary of the Kraft 300, which was first admired 40 years ago. And for this anniversary there is the new one
Kraft 300 MK-3 Class A. what a chunk I would like to listen to ...
If you have any questions or would like a listening appointment, please contact Symphonic Line Tel. 0203 31 56 56

I just ordered the 40th Anniversary Symphonic Line Kraft 300 Stereo Amplifier. I should have it in 30 Days and will report on how it integrates and sounds with my system.

Words from Rolf on the 40th Anniversary Symphonic Line Kraft 300 Stereo Amplifier. “Maximum selection / plus very elaborate Super Mu metal transformers used for the first time (just got only 2 again) and other details as well as very long individual tuning from me. More is not possible.”

 

[AudioLibertarian]

I just ordered the 40th Anniversary Symphonic Line Kraft 300 Stereo Amplifier. I should have it in 30 Days and will report on how it integrates and sounds with my system.

Words from Rolf on the 40th Anniversary Symphonic Line Kraft 300 Stereo Amplifier. “Maximum selection / plus very elaborate Super Mu metal transformers used for the first time (just got only 2 again) and other details as well as very long individual tuning from me. More is not possible.”

Hey Jon,

Any updates ? Its been around 45 days or so

Thanks

 

[jonaiken]

Hey Jon,

Any updates ? Its been around 45 days or so

Thanks

 

[jonaiken]

The 40th Anniversary Kraft 300 will be here this Thursday and I will give my initial impressions this weekend. Exciting times ahead. Thanks

 

[AudioLibertarian]

The 40th Anniversary Kraft 300 will be here this Thursday and I will give my initial impressions this weekend. Exciting times ahead. Thanks

Also , as I'm sure you know the SL amps take very long time to fully break in....for those who believe in such a concept that is .