Krell unveils its most affordable integrated amp yet

Krell, Conneticut high-end heroes for the past 30 years, has announced its most affordable integrated stereo amplifier: the K-300i.

The numbers attached to the K-300i are all impressive. 150 watts per channel of power at 8 ohms, doubling to 300 watts into 4 ohms. 18.2kg once it's out of its packaging. And a starting price of £4698.

That money buys the aforementioned power output, two balance XLR inputs, three pairs of stereo RCA inputs, outputs for two pairs of speakers and stereo RCA pre-amp outputs. It also buys you the benefi of Krell's iBais amplifier technology, designed to bring all of the benefits of Class A amplification without the attendant heat and power consumption downsides.

Up your spend to £5698 and the K-300i can be had with digital options. These amount to an ESS Sabre 24bit/192kHz DAC fed by an optical or RCA coxial input, compatible with every meaningful file format. Spotify, Tidal, Deezer and vTuner internet radio are provided for, and the Krell is Roon Ready and decodes MQA files too.

The digital option also delivers a pair of HDMI 2.0 sockets (in and out) that are 4K KDR compliant. aptX Bluetooth is on board, and there are front and rear USB sockets too (up front for stick-borne music, around the back for a hard connection to a computer).

The K-300i is on sale in the UK from next month.

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Simon Lucas is a freelance technology journalist and consultant, with particular emphasis on the audio/video aspects of home entertainment. Before embracing the carefree life of the freelancer, he was editor of What Hi-Fi? – since then, he's written for titles such as GQ, Metro, The Guardian and Stuff, among many others.