Could a Krell KSA50 run a pair of L250's?

[kelossus]

Title says its all. Is a ultra high current 50 watt amp enough for the L250's?

From Stereophile:

The Krell KSA-50 is new-wave enough, however, to be an incredibly stiff class-A design, rather than a pseudo–class-A circuit, and its 50 watts per channel are supported by enough of a power supply to drive an arc welder. You get about 70 watts of RMS power with 8 ohms, 150 watts with 4 ohms, and sufficient watts into 2 ohms to threaten my load resistors.

[HCSGuy]

Absolutely, but you may not like how it sounds, so don’t be surprised if you end up moving the amp along to someone else sooner, rather than later. I ran my 250ti’s on vintage Krell in the 90’s back when they weren’t so vintage, and they were really unforgiving - nothing smooth about the highs, and the 250ti’s just made that worse. I sold the amps on and never looked back.

[SEAWOLF97]

I ran my 250Ti's on an 80wpc Denon receiver for a while. Most people
would say they sounded fine, but I knew they were capable of much more.

When I switched to a 375wpc, high damping factor amp, they came alive and showed what they could really do. :D

If you already have the Krell & speakers, give it a try ... just know that they do like a lot of power.

[kelossus]

I would say the original KSA50/KSA100 are certainly forgiving and somewhat dark sounding. I don't think the highs will get jagged, will see.

Will having a lack of headroom cause the amplifier to clip on dynamic peaks? Or will it just "lessen" the impact due to the lack of current reserve.

If it doesn't work out with the L250's I can always run the KSA50 on the HF section of my 4350's. In part I am concerned here also as I have read that they like a lot of power also, even though they are 99db/w,

[rdgrimes]

I'd recommend around 200-250 WPC for the 250s. Bottom line is that the harder you push them the better they should sound.

[Paul001]

absolutely yes, I find the ksa 50 spectacular with the JBL L250, the JBL are particularly good with amplifiers with great current availability to BJT

[DerekTheGreat]

Absolutely, but you may not like how it sounds, so don’t be surprised if you end up moving the amp along to someone else sooner, rather than later. I ran my 250ti’s on vintage Krell in the 90’s back when they weren’t so vintage, and they were really unforgiving - nothing smooth about the highs, and the 250ti’s just made that worse. I sold the amps on and never looked back.


Wow, this is good information. Nearly everywhere I look people always talk about how great Krell is..

[Paul001]

a power amp does not sound alone, it also depends on the pre and the source, the krell ksa 50 is an exceptional amplifier, I also had the 100 which I find less beautiful, both coupled with CJ EV20, CJ premier 10 and CJ premier 17 preamps.
50 was spectacular