KR Audio Electronics celebrating 15 year anniversary
Chief engineer Marek Gencev, also a brilliant designer, has spend quite a lot of his time to make Eunice Kron a birthday present. Ricardo and Eunice Kron founded KR Audio Electronics 15 years ago now. Unfortunately Eunice's husband Ricardo passed away a few years ago. Eunice decided to go on with Ricardo's dream work making the most musical and realistic amplifier using the huge T 1610 audio triode.
Now a days the young guy Marek is the leading engineer and he has released a very interesting amplifier, the VA 880. The VA 880 is a very smart and powerful integrated push-pull amplifier with four nice KR KT88 tubes. The tubes are driven by a very dynamic mosfet and controlled by smart microprocessing with also auto bias.
The result of his effort is a nice powerful and very musical instrument with a lot of micro detail and dynamics at a nice price. The VA 880 produces 2x 70 watt or optional 2x 120 watt. There are two different versions available, the standard as shown on the picture with the inox (removable) tube-protection and the Limited Signature Anniversary Edition with gold plated buttons and tube cap.
The suggested price will be € 5990,00 for the standard version and € 6990,00 for the Limited Signature Anniversary Edition. The KR distributors are very enthusiast and see this Anniversary Edition as a collectors item. There will only be a limited number of the Signature Anniversary Edition.
The first Public Audition will be in Holland at the AZ Audio show in Alkmaar on 21&22 of February. After this event this first VA 880 will travel to the France Distributor in Marseilles.
Since I was in the Czech Republic for a few days in the snow with friends and family when I heard about the VA 880 news, I was able to go to Prague to see and hear the first VA 880.
I called Eunice and drove all the snowy ways down to the factory in Prague.
KR is located in the former building of Philips Research. In this building there is the “good old tubevacuumizer” of Telefunke Werke. This machine is very valuable to 'vacuumize' the big T 1610.
After a Quick factory tour, meeting the nice guy Marek there was time to look and listen to the VA 880. As a sound- and recording engineer for more than 40 years I have heard quite a lot of amplifiers. My first reaction was the VA 880 sounding familiar to the Kronzilla. Very dynamic fast and clean sound. The power is more than enough, even for the less efficient speakers. The possibility having the option for the nearly double power (120watt p.c.) makes this unit capable to drive nearly every speaker in the world. It is very unique having a tube amplifier at this power and the superior KR sound quality at this price!
I was lucky to have the opportunity to take the amp to Holland for the AZ Audio show to drive Albert von Schweikert's Unifield III.
After cooling down and packing carefully I went back on the road to my family joining the snow again. The road up to the mountain was very hard to drive due to a snowstorm. Finally I arrived safely. I can tell you this first VA 880 already is one with a nice (KR)history. If you are able to look and listen feel free to drop in some day and celebrate the 15 years of KR Audio Electronics.
Have fun and enjoy the music.
Cor Dekker
Musical Reality
KR Distributor for Benelux
www.musicalreality.nl
