Krell Debuts New Pre-Amplifiers

Landing in US stores this week are the US$15,000 Illusion which has an outboard power supply and the US$7,000 Illusion II which has digital inputs. If you think the new press are styled like Krell’s iBias amps, you’re right. They are.

The Illusion preamp links to the iBias amps using a patented Current Audio Signal Transfer (CAST) connection. Krell’s pitch is CAST was designed to reduce noise created by cables and increases bandwidth.

Run a Krell source, preamp, and amplifier which have CAST technology and you only require a single voltage-gain stage which results in a noise floor so low Krell describes it as “approaching the theoretical limit of technology”.

Krell says the Illusion II is a synergistic match with the US$9,500 2x300-watt Duo 300 amplifier or the US$7,500 2x175-watt Duo 175 amplifier. The US$15,000 Illusion also works beautifully with the 375-watt monoblock Solo 375 and 575-watt monoblock Solo 575 which sell for US$17,500/pair and $22,500/pair, respectively.

The $15,000 Illusion preamplifier is a dual-mono model with discrete left and right channel circuits complete with separate boards and power supplies.

Krell are also praising the Illusion's optional crossover which can be used to bypass the one in an active subwoofer. The optional crossover board works at 40Hz, 55Hz, 75Hz and 100Hz  with 12dB, 24dB and 48dB Butterworth or 24dB Linkwitz-Riley filters.

Illusion II carries five digital inputs as well as balanced, and single-ended analog inputs. The digital inputs are AES/EBU, coaxial and optical for use with streaming devices or other digital sources. The digital inputs will handle 24-bit/192kHz PCM.

For more info: Audio Marketing