Introduction I have owned various Krell amplifiers in my reference systems over the years, each providing hours upon hours of listening joy. Recently, Krell has released a new top-of-the-line lineup of gear under the Evolution moniker that speaks to those for a need for the best of the best and a willingness to pay for it. The review system under evaluation is comprised of a $10,000 Krell Evolution 505 SACD player with 24-bit 192 DACs, a $15,000 Krell Evolution 202 two-chassis stereo preamp and the monstrous Krell Evolution 900 monaural amplifiers at $20,000 each, or $40,000 for the stereo pair as reviewed. My review samples are done in Krell’s signature silver finish, which is breathtakingly beautiful out of the rack and poised on a simple table as it is installed in my reference system. Set-up To start, it is important to note that the Krell Evolution 900 power amps are nothing short of huge. With a travel ...

Introduction The format war for high-definition discs wages on, but for now, DVD is still the reigning king of home video formats. We all have years of back catalogue DVDs in our collections, and a solid player is of paramount importance to any theater. High-resolution audio in the form of SACD and DVD-Audio are still prominent and Denon makes several levels of players capable of spinning CD, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio and SACD discs, with their top of the line spinner being the DVD-5910CI priced at $3,800. The DVD-5910CI is designed to be the primary source for a high-end home theater or whole home distribution system and, as such, offers connectivity not often found on consumer level goods. The “CI” stands for Custom Integration. This is Denon’s way of identifying their products with connectivity and control features for home integration and theaters using advance control systems. This flagship DVD player in the Denon line offers a vast array ...

Introduction The format war for high-definition discs wages on, but for now, DVD is still the reigning king of home video formats. We all have years of back catalogue DVDs in our collections, and a solid player is of paramount importance to any theater. High-resolution audio in the form of SACD and DVD-Audio are still prominent and Denon makes several levels of players capable of spinning CD, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio and SACD discs, with their top of the line spinner being the DVD-5910CI priced at $3,800. The DVD-5910CI is designed to be the primary source for a high-end home theater or whole home distribution system and, as such, offers connectivity not often found on consumer level goods. The “CI” stands for Custom Integration. This is Denon’s way of identifying their products with connectivity and control features for home integration and theaters using advance control systems. This flagship DVD player in the Denon line offers a vast array ...

Introduction Believe it or not, the market for high-end CD players is alive and well. Despite the introduction of new high-end formats such as DVD-Audio, SACD and now HD-DVD and Blu-ray, the fact remains that there is more music available on CD than on all the new high-resolution formats combined. The music lovers who have a large collection of music on CD still need high-quality players in order to fully enjoy the music that they have spent so many years amassing. The CDP-202 ($6,500) is the latest and greatest of the stereo-only “CD player” options in Classé’s Delta series of products. The Delta Series is the first new product series from Classé Audio since Classé became part of the B&W group. I place CD player in quotes when describing the CDP-202, as it will actually play just about any non-high-definition disc format other than SACD. The new Delta Series CD player screamed “well-made high-end ...

Introduction With so much media focus on the recent releases of HD DVD and Blu-ray, one could possibly see the demise of the current DVD hardware set just on the horizon. But early adopters beware: HD DVD is suffering from some brutal (perhaps even fatal) growing pains to overcome maladies such as painfully slow load times, frequent and amazingly frustrating reboots and excruciating integration issues with existing home theater systems, thanks to the fact that movie studios have forced HD DVD players to constantly have an HDCP handshake, which is at the root of most of people’s connectivity and switching issues. Blu-ray is better, but still suffers from many problems, including a lack of RS232 control, reported and admitted problems with the video output (even though it looks pretty good) and the fact that HDMI 1.3 offers as much as twice the video bandwidth going to your set. At this point, who could blame anyone ...