On August 29, 2024, Wm. R. Kennedy Buhler, aka Wil Buhler, informed Krell dealers, distributors, and customers that Krell is well on the path to reopening.
Me, review a $150,000 preamp? This was not a kid in a candy storescale event. This was a kid let loose in a big-assed candy factoryscale event.
My glucose levels spiked. Questions whirled. What new virtues might a cost-no-object, presumably state-of-the-art preamplifier bring to my reference system? Would images be more corporeal? Would the soundstage be wider and deeper, tonal colors more intense? Would bassalready fabulousbe even more solid? Would the Relentless preamp move me closer to a premium-seat-in-a-live-concert experience?
It's time to go out on a limb. Are Danny Elfman's Percussion Concerto and the other works on his new album "great music"? Should this classical music, from the former lead singer and songwriter of new wave band Oingo Boingowho composed film scores for Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, and Spider-Man, and whose music introduces Desperate Housewives and The Simpsonsbe in the same conversation with Albéniz, Scriabin, Ligeti, Glass, Gluck, Brahms, and Beethoven, whose work appears on our other Recording of the Month candidate, Yuja Wang's Vienna Recital?
VTL and Wilson have delivered great sound at previous shows, and they did so again here in a set-up of which Peter McGrath, Brand Ambassador for Wilson Audio, was especially proud: VTL’s MB-450 III Signature monoblocks, TL7.5 III Reference preamplifier, and TP6.5 II.
Munich, redux: Western Electric owner Charles Whitener and Sales Director Trent Suggs together gave us a first look at Western Electric’s upcoming products. Dumb me failed to turn on my video until late in the presentation, but below you can catch a bit of Suggs’ presentation.