The fascia also hosts an elegant but simple 3.5-inch QVGA LCD colour screen, in which the control menu appears.

The fascia, which has a three-dimensional sculptural element in the middle that conceals a dual colour lighting device that emits a red glow when the unit is in Standby mode, then glows blue when the Connect is fully operational.

It certainly has a similar ‘macho’ build quality to the current range of amplifiers, with its substantial aluminium fascia. Krell’s history of source components suggest similar attributes from other electronics that the company might produce, including as this network player. All I can say at this juncture is Bravo, Krell! The 24-bit/192kHz-capable Connect is the first such streamer to be released by the American company and the plan is that its release will be followed within one month by a DAC-equipped variant.Īlthough it has made some excellent CD players and was the first brand to take the iPod seriously as an audiophile source with its curiously-named Papa Doc, Krell is still best known for its amplifiers: these are recognised and respected for their outstanding linearity, their ability to drive virtually any loudspeaker to any SPL while maintaining the same consistent sound quality, detail, dynamics and openness. The release of the Krell Connect suggests that high-end audiophiles in the USA have finally seen the light and are beginning to appreciate UPnP server as a music storage device working with a dedicated renderer to which the music is transported through Ethernet and an IP network: this methodology is so superior to storing music on a general purpose laptop and then squeezing it down a USB cable through a processor-hungry piece of player software into a hi-jacked DAC. Our pals across ‘the pond’ still seem to favour the Mac’n’DAC approach – in which you store your music on a laptop, and use music player software to squirt your tunes into the USB input of a separate converter.

Britain and Europe certainly lead the way in terms of Network Music players: Linn, Naim and recently Cyrus, Revox and Electrocompaniet have been extolling the virtues of UPnP (Universal Plug n Play) players for some time, and many European audiophiles have recognised this as the ideal way to extract music from computers and networks.

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