Good morning everyone,
I have a Behringer amp (A500) that I plan on using to drive my sub with. The unit delivers a little more power into an 8 ohm load than my Krell, so I thought it would be worthwhile comparing the sound of the two amps on my system.
Being nearly the same power, there cannot be much to be said either way for dynamic headroom. Both the Behringer and the Krell use toroidal transformers, both have large heatsinks. To make things fair, I used the Krell as the pre-amp for the Behringer as well, so everything from the transport, to the DAC, to the cables, to the Pre-Amp, through to the speakers were the same - only changed the power amp sections.
Although there is no comparision in price between the two amps (the Krell costs about 30x more), I still thought it would be worth the test.
The results were interesting:
The Behringer definitely has balls. By that I mean it has power - especially in the bass region. The two 10" drivers in my AR speakers were singing very nicely indeed. I am used to good bass output - one of the Krell's strong points, so this was a nice surprise.
The differences showed up in two areas: The first was the mids / highs, and the next was the stereo imaging. In my opinion the Behringer is simply not on par when it comes to the two points above. I had two other people try the same test. One of them was a blind test. My flat-mate could identify the two amps 100% of the time in blind testing using one of Ms. Chapman's songs.
Not that I am saying the Behringer is a bad amp - hell for the money (Rand per Watt) it is excellent indeed. I do however think that there is a significant difference in the sound quality of the two. The behringer is quite harsh on the mid and high sounds - almost like the rounding off wasn't given too much attention.
That being said, the amp has only run in for about 40 hours now. I somehow doubt that more run-in will make a difference, but let's give it the benefit of the doubt. One more thing to consider is application: Pro-amps are designed for being used in a certain context - their focus is on reliability and power output. The beer in a club stops people from noticing or caring too much about the SQ. Krell on the other hand know that their customers are going to be listening very carefully indeed before they shell out the car-like money for one of their amps.
In any event, the amp will be good enough for the bass I will need it to produce. As a home amp, I am a bit hesitant however. This might be attributed to me being used to the Krell, who knows for sure.
I know Timber is a big fan of the Pro equipment, so there is definitely a following. What does anybody else think? Have you heard one of these amps in a home environment? Did you love it, or did you loathe it?
Cheers,
Ian.
I have a Behringer amp (A500) that I plan on using to drive my sub with. The unit delivers a little more power into an 8 ohm load than my Krell, so I thought it would be worthwhile comparing the sound of the two amps on my system.
Being nearly the same power, there cannot be much to be said either way for dynamic headroom. Both the Behringer and the Krell use toroidal transformers, both have large heatsinks. To make things fair, I used the Krell as the pre-amp for the Behringer as well, so everything from the transport, to the DAC, to the cables, to the Pre-Amp, through to the speakers were the same - only changed the power amp sections.
Although there is no comparision in price between the two amps (the Krell costs about 30x more), I still thought it would be worth the test.
The results were interesting:
The Behringer definitely has balls. By that I mean it has power - especially in the bass region. The two 10" drivers in my AR speakers were singing very nicely indeed. I am used to good bass output - one of the Krell's strong points, so this was a nice surprise.
The differences showed up in two areas: The first was the mids / highs, and the next was the stereo imaging. In my opinion the Behringer is simply not on par when it comes to the two points above. I had two other people try the same test. One of them was a blind test. My flat-mate could identify the two amps 100% of the time in blind testing using one of Ms. Chapman's songs.
Not that I am saying the Behringer is a bad amp - hell for the money (Rand per Watt) it is excellent indeed. I do however think that there is a significant difference in the sound quality of the two. The behringer is quite harsh on the mid and high sounds - almost like the rounding off wasn't given too much attention.
That being said, the amp has only run in for about 40 hours now. I somehow doubt that more run-in will make a difference, but let's give it the benefit of the doubt. One more thing to consider is application: Pro-amps are designed for being used in a certain context - their focus is on reliability and power output. The beer in a club stops people from noticing or caring too much about the SQ. Krell on the other hand know that their customers are going to be listening very carefully indeed before they shell out the car-like money for one of their amps.
In any event, the amp will be good enough for the bass I will need it to produce. As a home amp, I am a bit hesitant however. This might be attributed to me being used to the Krell, who knows for sure.
I know Timber is a big fan of the Pro equipment, so there is definitely a following. What does anybody else think? Have you heard one of these amps in a home environment? Did you love it, or did you loathe it?
Cheers,
Ian.
