I feel this is a strange beast. Its a made in China amp. The internal components esp. the capacitor sucks (crappy brand). Then many folks here blasted the OP177 and it should not be in the signal path.
But reviews everywhere (including user reviews) says its good. Even better than tha 400XI. This is why I am really curious what makes it good?? Just doesn't make sense to me,
Btw, I have created a new thread. Decide to open up my S300i for cleaning and perhaps see what I can do to it!! Lol!! But as you can see, the amp has been repaired before. Perhaps as they said, its not the durable. Those resistors are hot when amp is working. Very hot. I guess some were fried.
https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/solid-state/357208-krell-s300i-teardown-improve.html#post6272930
But reviews everywhere (including user reviews) says its good. Even better than tha 400XI. This is why I am really curious what makes it good?? Just doesn't make sense to me,
Btw, I have created a new thread. Decide to open up my S300i for cleaning and perhaps see what I can do to it!! Lol!! But as you can see, the amp has been repaired before. Perhaps as they said, its not the durable. Those resistors are hot when amp is working. Very hot. I guess some were fried.
https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/solid-state/357208-krell-s300i-teardown-improve.html#post6272930
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The sound is in the DESIGN.
Terrible parts will hurt it, of course, but that´s not the case here.
Competent commercial parts made by the large manufacturers by the zillions and sold by the large distributors aren good enough and then some to meet designer´s goals.
A design which depends on parts **BRAND** to work as intended, is a TERRIBLE design.
Terrible parts will hurt it, of course, but that´s not the case here.
Competent commercial parts made by the large manufacturers by the zillions and sold by the large distributors aren good enough and then some to meet designer´s goals.
A design which depends on parts **BRAND** to work as intended, is a TERRIBLE design.
Clearly that is not so.
When A brands have their stuff produced in China it can be excellent products as long as they have a local guy doing QC. PS Audio had its stuff produced in China but after some painful quality issues they want back to the USA.
When I as a consumer with some technical knowledge see a former expensive brand being produced in China I just know its stuff is being produced very cheap. It may be a good device but why would I pay the premium price? I would do so when it was made in the EU, USA etc. as labour is not cheap in the west.
Besides that I have by now seen many China made "premium" brands with much too high failure rate. This while the former locally produced stuff was very good and only rarely failed. Especially the failing electrolytic caps is a seemingly returning phenomenon.
I do NOT say everything Chinese is bad but one has a reason to have stuff made over there and that is solely price. When I was in China I have seen very large stores specifically meant for the wealthy Chinese selling .... Europese products 😀
So my strong personal opinion is that when a brand that sells premium stuff made in the USA decides to have its stuff produced in China I think their finest days are over and I would not buy the product. You just know reviews are a strong marketing tool as buyers often are insecure. Reviewers often can keep the stuff they are reviewing if the review is positive. What you will be buying is more "baked air" as we call it than what you expect to buy.
When I as a consumer with some technical knowledge see a former expensive brand being produced in China I just know its stuff is being produced very cheap. It may be a good device but why would I pay the premium price? I would do so when it was made in the EU, USA etc. as labour is not cheap in the west.
Besides that I have by now seen many China made "premium" brands with much too high failure rate. This while the former locally produced stuff was very good and only rarely failed. Especially the failing electrolytic caps is a seemingly returning phenomenon.
I do NOT say everything Chinese is bad but one has a reason to have stuff made over there and that is solely price. When I was in China I have seen very large stores specifically meant for the wealthy Chinese selling .... Europese products 😀
So my strong personal opinion is that when a brand that sells premium stuff made in the USA decides to have its stuff produced in China I think their finest days are over and I would not buy the product. You just know reviews are a strong marketing tool as buyers often are insecure. Reviewers often can keep the stuff they are reviewing if the review is positive. What you will be buying is more "baked air" as we call it than what you expect to buy.
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even now, after many decades, ‘made in Japan’ is always my preference since the demise of the good EU brands but good to see new one’s emerge.
American made holds no interest for me (save for Nelson) on account of decades of terrible automobiles, there’s simply no culture of quality that can come close to Japan, except perhaps Korea. And don’t expect your German car to be as reliable as Japanese either but it will be orders of magnitude better than most of American made (there are a few good American cars but they are notable for being the exception).
are the Japanese brands now manufacturing in China too ?
American made holds no interest for me (save for Nelson) on account of decades of terrible automobiles, there’s simply no culture of quality that can come close to Japan, except perhaps Korea. And don’t expect your German car to be as reliable as Japanese either but it will be orders of magnitude better than most of American made (there are a few good American cars but they are notable for being the exception).
are the Japanese brands now manufacturing in China too ?
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Luckily there is still Europe outside of the EU 🙂
There are so many truly amazing Swiss audio brands.
I don't get this thread. No internal close ups, no circuits, nothing at all... Sounds good compared to what? What exactly is being discussed?
The vast majority of entry level high end is built using cheap parts anyway.
The vast majority of entry level high end is built using cheap parts anyway.
Avoid Intel CPUs and AMD CPUs. You may be pleased that Apple's newly announced bespoke CPUs are going to be made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company in Hsinchu, i.e., not America.
Here's a quote form whathifi.com:
"Not consistent enough to recommend
We thought long and hard about the S-300i's star rating: the amplifier's odd mix of the brilliant and disappointing makes it hard to classify.
We've decided to give it three stars, because we think an amp at this elevated price has to be a better musical all-rounder to gain a recommendation, particularly when its rivals include Plinius' excellent 9200 and Moon's highly capable i3.3.
Krell has made some great integrated amps – this isn't one of them."
jeff
"Not consistent enough to recommend
We thought long and hard about the S-300i's star rating: the amplifier's odd mix of the brilliant and disappointing makes it hard to classify.
We've decided to give it three stars, because we think an amp at this elevated price has to be a better musical all-rounder to gain a recommendation, particularly when its rivals include Plinius' excellent 9200 and Moon's highly capable i3.3.
Krell has made some great integrated amps – this isn't one of them."
jeff
That is not good news for jobs in the USA. Besides that I would have thought Covid19 has shown us that dependancy on only a few countries producing face masks, medicine etc. is not the best of ideas. Outsourcing production of high tech is even more dangerous.
If one gives the knowledge to the main competitor that is also cheaper one will ask oneself one day what the purpose exactly was. Was it to have more profit? OK well now the profit is made elsewhere and the jobs are also there 🙂
Sidenote: I was surprised Apple switched from RISC to X86 and had all the users adapt to buy new computers and a new OS. Now they change again to ARM.
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Hello all,
I would argue that there are good quality units (of most anything) produced in most countries, and crap as well.
As far as cars go quite a few people in the US go for top dollar European cars as they are pretty good and have a more unique image than domestic. Image in the top dollar bracket is almost as important as the quality of the product quite often.
Generalizing that any one countries goods are bad is just so wrong and not true. Buyers do have to beware, use good sense and research the product regardless of where something is made.
All ****** are bad generalizations are not helpful.
I would argue that there are good quality units (of most anything) produced in most countries, and crap as well.
As far as cars go quite a few people in the US go for top dollar European cars as they are pretty good and have a more unique image than domestic. Image in the top dollar bracket is almost as important as the quality of the product quite often.
Generalizing that any one countries goods are bad is just so wrong and not true. Buyers do have to beware, use good sense and research the product regardless of where something is made.
All ****** are bad generalizations are not helpful.
Yes, I agree.
Many people have been being separated from their money pretty much forever as the cost of not doing some research before buying. Not likely to change in the foreseeable future, but those who do "beware", usually end up with better products at a more reasonable price.
Famous quote: "A sucker is born every minute." Take a look at the claims made for some high end cables if you think that isn't still true.
Many people have been being separated from their money pretty much forever as the cost of not doing some research before buying. Not likely to change in the foreseeable future, but those who do "beware", usually end up with better products at a more reasonable price.
Famous quote: "A sucker is born every minute." Take a look at the claims made for some high end cables if you think that isn't still true.
Quality components ...mainly capacitors ... will mostly affect: average time betwen failure ....
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I think Apple are simply migrating their desktops to the same hardware as is already in all their other stuff i.e. ipads, phones etc which use ARM cores in Apple designed chips and hence so that they can unify software and offer the App Store across all products. App developers swarm all over the mobile platforms and ignore Apple desktops but with this move that will change.
The dimensions 'design' (or topology), 'components' and manufacturing (->QC) are alike electronic design challanges: amplification, distortion, noise. Balancing on a curved rope.
You have to remember that if you do something a lot you get good at it, even if you start off badly.
Take Teapo caps that were one of the biggest failures (did they start the whole bad cap thing?), they work these days, even if you still don't like them based on legacy.
China is good at building things if you control it, most of what you own these days was probably made there, or something within it was. You only ever hear about the bad reviews or problems, not about the much higher percentage of success cases.
A lot of what is perceived as "crappy components" is based on history. If you have made something bad and been successful at it, surely that means you have the experience in how to not make bad parts....... Or at least how to compromise enough to keep most people happy.
I keep buying parts from Chinese supplies, LCSC is so much cheaper than Farnell, Digikey, Mouser etc, even for branded parts (that actually seem genuine). For passive parts, like resistors or ceramic capacitors or simple semi's, if you are building audio products who really cares.
If it was safety related or medical products then steer clear if you have a conscious, but otherwise just save some money.
Take Teapo caps that were one of the biggest failures (did they start the whole bad cap thing?), they work these days, even if you still don't like them based on legacy.
China is good at building things if you control it, most of what you own these days was probably made there, or something within it was. You only ever hear about the bad reviews or problems, not about the much higher percentage of success cases.
A lot of what is perceived as "crappy components" is based on history. If you have made something bad and been successful at it, surely that means you have the experience in how to not make bad parts....... Or at least how to compromise enough to keep most people happy.
I keep buying parts from Chinese supplies, LCSC is so much cheaper than Farnell, Digikey, Mouser etc, even for branded parts (that actually seem genuine). For passive parts, like resistors or ceramic capacitors or simple semi's, if you are building audio products who really cares.
If it was safety related or medical products then steer clear if you have a conscious, but otherwise just save some money.
Good question.
None of what you ask for, because this discussion is fully subjective, zero hard facts.
Apparently the OP is under the wrong impression that good stuff is that which uses expensive components, nothing else matters.
Forget small details such as actual performance. 🙄
Fact is you can easily make terrible or even non-working products using "million dollar" components or materials.
Give me U$1.000 worth of Kobe beef and I can turn it into a chunk of charred unedible steak in about 10 minutes 😱
That doesn't matter as long as you get the marketing right, it's not about the product, it's about how it connects with a person.....
Sorry, my bad.
6moons.com audio reviews: Krell S-300i
There is a photo of the power amp section. Those black electrolytic caps arent japanese capacitors or anything considered audio grade. Its some unknown brand.
As for the op177. Its due to another discussion here.
Krell S300i Integrated Amp "Made in China" which Factory?
As for sound, i was looking for comparisons betweem this and the 400xi. Eg. Of a thread about the comparison in another forum (there are many more threads from other forums too).
New Krell s300i vs. the older 400/300 | Audiogon Discussion Forum
Thays why i am rather puzzled.