Naim Nait XS or Krell S-300i integrated amp - take your pick

hi sifu,

my friend ask to advice which better naim nait xs or krell s300i. For me a both amp is really good for dynamic sound, but i have no experience with krell. so i don't no how to advice him.

genre: rock, jazz, new age, unplugged

Your opinion are welcome...thanks

hi microkernel,

Naim or Krell are both capable and highly regarded amps.
i strongly suggest that the friend of yours should audition both amps himself..only he himself could decide which amp are best for his ears

all the best!

None is picked. They induce listening fatigue in prolonged listening preriod, they, however, might suit many including you depending on your taste. Regards.

Mercedes-Benz vs BMW, only which one you prefer.

more like BMW vs. Volkswagen.

One's got more engineering but mfg'ed in some "backyard factory" un-befitting its high end marque, the other is supposed to be good bang-4-buck but it is peculiarly overpriced in Malaysia.

soonthas wrote:None is picked. They induce listening fatigue in prolonged listening preriod, they, however, might suit many including you depending on your taste. Regards.

I agree. While they may give you valuable insight down a singer's throat, prolonged listening can be torture to your ears (and if maintained, your head, too). Personally, I'd go for an Audio Analogue Puccini or something along those lines.....

jcwlow wrote:

soonthas wrote:None is picked. They induce listening fatigue in prolonged listening preriod, they, however, might suit many including you depending on your taste. Regards.

I agree. While they may give you valuable insight down a singer's throat, prolonged listening can be torture to your ears (and if maintained, your head, too). Personally, I'd go for an Audio Analogue Puccini or something along those lines.....

err......wide sampling preferred before making affirmation and shallow statement.

if I have to choose between those 2,Naim of course...well,if you want a Krell you have to choose much higher models..

But,i fully agree with Mr Soonthas,given a choice ,I would choose neither...

lewce1 wrote:

err......wide sampling preferred before making affirmation and shallow statement.

Lewce1,

Agree.

Naim & Krell sure have their followers & detractors...but seriously, it is food for thought as to how many of us have actually listened to the Naim Nait XS and/or Krell S-300i amps, not just making generalisations based on listening to other models of Naims or Krells, positive or otherwise, before giving our thoughts.

In this case, the pen is mightier than the sword and we may unknowingly be carriers of misinformation. When it is overly positive, it becomes hype and conversely, unsubstantiated negativity turns to unjust condemnation.

Therefore, if you are commenting on the sound characteristics of any equipment, your stand is valid only if you have personally listened to the equipment in question.

jcwlow wrote:

soonthas wrote:None is picked. They induce listening fatigue in prolonged listening preriod, they, however, might suit many including you depending on your taste. Regards.

I agree. While they may give you valuable insight down a singer's throat, prolonged listening can be torture to your ears (and if maintained, your head, too). Personally, I'd go for an Audio Analogue Puccini or something along those lines.....

Torture to the ears or not .. the final yardstick should be how "accurately" can the equipment deliver the sonic presentation as faithfully to the original source. For example, if listening to 2 hours non-stop on a Steinway & Sons piano would give you "listening fatigue", then consequently if the same (or as close as possible) recorded performance played back on Brand-ABC/XYZ amp also would give you "listening fatigue" after 2 hours (give or take...) .. then by virtue of the amp's honesty and in keeping faithful to the original performance, it is a good amp. Amen.

Of course, if one is just looking for something to be so soothing to the ears regardless of it being faithful to the original source or not .. then sure ... do get an amp that will always sound so soothing and pleasing to the ears. Like a super silky smooth lullaby machine.

Choosing an suitable amp for your hifi system should be based on your taste and financial status.
Perhaps accuracy = "good amp", but there is no absolute answer to it and it is also very subjective. Some might categorize a smooth amp as a good amp but some might think otherwise.
There are variables in hifi, if one buys an amp but it induces listening fatigue and he or she does not like the sound, one could replace other equipments like speakers, etc or accessories to a warmer or smoother type to smoothen the overall sound.
In reality, I think most of us would prefer spending big buck or hard earned money to mainly and relaxedly " enjoy the music ( not "hifi" ) in longer moment ".
In reality also, my experiences in listening to many live music being held in most of the famous concert halls, has confirmed that such live ( more accurate )music has never induced listening fatigue.
By the way there are some brands of accurate amps which do not induce listening fatigue.
Just my point of view, no offence whatsoever.

hughesths wrote:Choosing an suitable amp for your hifi system should be based on your taste and financial status.
Perhaps accuracy = "good amp", but there is no absolute answer to it and it is also very subjective. Some might categorize a smooth amp as a good amp but some might think otherwise.
There are variables in hifi, if one buys an amp but it induces listening fatigue and he or she does not like the sound, one could replace other equipments like speakers, etc or accessories to a warmer or smoother type to smoothen the overall sound.
In reality, I think most of us would prefer spending big buck or hard earned money to mainly and relaxedly " enjoy the music ( not "hifi" ) in longer moment ".
In reality also, my experiences in listening to many live music being held in most of the famous concert halls, has confirmed that such live ( more accurate )music has never induced listening fatigue.
By the way there are some brands of accurate amps which do not induce listening fatigue.
Just my point of view, no offence whatsoever.

On the topic of live performances:
Well, kinda depends where u sit also ... if u happen to buy the cheaper seats and got placed just about 10 feet from the big Drum section... ouch.

Also if its a good hall like Royal Albert or Carnegie or even Petronas Phil. Hall, generally acoustics are really good.
But if its Kitaro @ Genting Arena of the Stars .... OUCH ! So yes, its quite relative here.

But that being said ... if the recording is based on a source performance (say at Genting Arena of the Stars) that in real-life it DID induce hearing fatigue, then an AMP that can faithfully re-create this effect.... is by virtue an accurate amp, and hence a good amp that it does what it is inteded to do which is faithful reproduction of the source. No two ways about this.

If u want an amp that will ALWAYS sound smooth and pleasing to the ear no matter what come hell or high-water, then it is at most, a "pleasing" amp but cannot in anyway considered an accurate or faithful amp.
Of course, if anyone finds such characteristics to be "good" in their books. Then sure, it is "good" for them. But it ain't "high-fidelity" anymore.

I extensively home auditioned the Nait XS and Primare I30 and in the end settled for the Primare. Choose one which suit your ears and not according to brand or reviews..

I have been using Naim XS for more than 4 months now (recently upgraded with 3rd party PSU "Teddy Cap" I think XS will suit your taste but it depend on what speakers you are using also.
One more thing you should consider is if you are looking for Naim CD player as well then it will be a best choice, if not you should give a serious audit before buy.

Choose the speaker first before choosing amp and not the other way round.

Actually I would say that if it is possible, to audition and choose both speaker and amp together if possible. But in this case, it looks like the buyer is going for amp only. Then simply bring the speakers to the dealer for a matching demo. Assuming those speakers are not massive floor-standers lar.

WongKN wrote:Actually I would say that if it is possible, to audition and choose both speaker and amp together if possible. But in this case, it looks like the buyer is going for amp only. Then simply bring the speakers to the dealer for a matching demo. Assuming those speakers are not massive floor-standers lar.

Yup.. Uncle Wong's advice is sound. The Naim can be very bright sounding with certain equipment and speakers..

In terms of versatility , i.e. more compatible with A WIDER range of speakers, Krell would be better purely on technical merits. (And anyone can validate this if u know how to read the numbers from both the Krell and Naim specs).

It would have a lower output impedance (amp's impedance, not the speaker's), so it would be more effortless to drive speakers that may dip down to pretty low impedances. Plus the Krell has a higher power rating too.

llsaw wrote:

WongKN wrote:Actually I would say that if it is possible, to audition and choose both speaker and amp together if possible. But in this case, it looks like the buyer is going for amp only. Then simply bring the speakers to the dealer for a matching demo. Assuming those speakers are not massive floor-standers lar.

Yup.. Uncle Wong's advice is sound. The Naim can be very bright sounding with certain equipment and speakers..

Bright-sounding is a TELL-TALE sign that the Amp is unable to deliver ample power to the speakers.

When I tried to drive my Apogee Centaur Major with the Audio Research Classic 60 power amp, it sounded dead, as in no highs, and the music is slow, like cassette walkman running out of battery or turntable speed too slow. A lot of flabby boomy bass (this part is always surprising to people, they thought no bass). And flat - totally no dynamics. We won't be able to hear any emotions from the singers, like they are just doing it for work and cannot wait to get it over with. And everything same volume, no soft and loud dynamics.

The Centaur Majors are rated by Apogee to require at least 80watts RMS to drive. The ARC Classic 60s are rated at 60watts RMS of course. When I swap back the Apogee Centaur Mimors (rated for 50watts RMS by Apogee), everything came back. But bass is of course weaker lar.

One of my friends used to have Thiel CS7. And he was driving with Krell MDA-300 monoblocks. He found not enough bass. Then he upgraded to Krell KAS reference monoblock. This has a current meter on the face plate and with leds show level of bias. Turns out the CS7 required the KAS to run at extended mode (i.e. dumping everything the wall power socket can deliver plus everything in the capacitors to the speaker). The meter showed something like 75 amps or higher. So it turns out MDA-300 was not ideal for the CS7, or rather not powerful enough. If memory serves correctly, the CS7 then sounded flat with limited dynamics (had to turn up the volume to get classical symphonies to sound 'right' but the low level passages suffered). A bit bright and with loose boomy bass. The KAS-CS7 combo taught me what -real- bass sounds like.

Apogee and the virtue of the ribbon design will sound dead and muddled (when they do not get enuff power) because as with most planar speakers, speaker load impedances will drop quite low at high frequencies & very low frequences. Same goes for Martin-Logans and Maggies as well.

When impedance load drops low, the amp will cough blood and vomit crap sound. High notes cannot be delivered with its full glory sparkle, bass notes cannot be accurately portrayed authoritatively.

But for the usual cones & domes conventional speakers, it is the lower frequencies of the woofer that will dip down to very low impedances. But for high notes, no problem because itsy bitsy tiny done tweeters and their hair-strand windings are very forgiving loads and generally wont have any impedance dips. Heck, their hair-strand coils already contribute a few Ohms in terms of DC resistance. Once in motion, and acting like an inductor coil, their impedances can only go up (hypothetically, ignoring the effects of X-over components for now) !


Hence the importance of power capabilities in ANY decent hi-fi system.

WongKN wrote:One of my friends used to have Thiel CS7. And he was driving with Krell MDA-300 monoblocks. He found not enough bass. Then he upgraded to Krell KAS reference monoblock. This has a current meter on the face plate and with leds show level of bias. Turns out the CS7 required the KAS to run at extended mode (i.e. dumping everything the wall power socket can deliver plus everything in the capacitors to the speaker). The meter showed something like 75 amps or higher. So it turns out MDA-300 was not ideal for the CS7, or rather not powerful enough. If memory serves correctly, the CS7 then sounded flat with limited dynamics (had to turn up the volume to get classical symphonies to sound 'right' but the low level passages suffered). A bit bright and with loose boomy bass. The KAS-CS7 combo taught me what -real- bass sounds like.

Digress a bit from the topic.

Hi WongKN,

Good to see you of all people in this forum. Never knew you were into hi-fi. I'm Andrew Saw from Penang

nvm

Yes Andrew, I recognized your nick ! Good to see you here too.