Help! trouble with Krell KSA-150 amp

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pjnad

Help! trouble with Krell KSA-150 amp
« on: 9 May 2013, 03:06 am »
Hello All,
Any advice or experience appreciated...I turned my system on earlier to let things warm up before sitting down to listen. I hit play on my transport and no sound...I noticed the led on my amp was not lit, so I thought maybe I forgot to turn it on. So, I power it up and I hear a loud "crackling" noise from the left channel and the amp turns it self off after about 30 -45 seconds. I power everything down and wait a few minutes...power on and the same thing happens but this time i smell that  electrical smell and a wisp of smoke is rising out of the top of the amp....  :cry:

bryaudioguy

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 3
Re: Help! trouble with Krell KSA-150 amp
« Reply #1 on: 13 Dec 2014, 02:57 pm »
Did you ever get the issue resolved? Doesn't sound good in any case from what you describe. These amps naturally run very hot as I own one and know from personal experience. Considering the age of the amp it should have been completely recapped and all the output devices removed and remounted to the heat sinks using new thermal insulators as the old ones dry up and no longer properly transfer heat to the heat sinks. If none of this has ever been done then most likely what has happened is some of the output devices have shorted and taken emitter resistors out with them. Not a pretty picture as far as failures are concerned as I have seen similar failure scenarios literally burn holes in the circuit boards when this happens. And to add insult to injury, the original (Krell factory selected and matched) Motorola output devices have not been produced for nearly 20 years.  Fortunately though for me, I rebuilt my KSA-150 before the time-bomb exploded and it is now good for another 25 years of service and of course still sounds fantastic. Where does your amp reside at this point?

pjnad

Re: Help! trouble with Krell KSA-150 amp
« Reply #2 on: 13 Dec 2014, 05:34 pm »
Hi,
Thanks for checking...fortunately we live in upstate NY so we drove it over to Krell in Connecticut shortly after my original post and it was completely overhauled. The head tech there was great to deal with and he loves these particular amps; he's been there over 20 years. I believe it cost me approximately $1400 but it was money well spent. The amp sounds better than ever and I plan on keeping it for awhile.
Regards,
Paul