Amphion Krypton3 Ukkos Vasara !

[denom]

Amphion Krypton3 Ukkos Vasara !

Finland, for me is a land of magical substance. That magic is omnipresent in the people, the industry which makes fine products & in Loudspeakers made as well. Ive been a big fan of Finnish Loudspeakers, I dont know why but their approach to sound just connects with me. Amphion speakers, continue to do so & never seize to amaze me. Right from the Entry Level Helium Series to the Flagship Krypton Speakers, on which am writing a review here.
Krypton | Amphion
I was very fortunate to listen to the Kryptons last week fresh out of the box, for an appreciable amount of time. The Kryptons were installed in a large room of about 500 Sqfeet, which was lightly furnished & had all the issues of glass windows/ glass partition & bare walls with light acoustic treatment done for speakers that were earlier part of the set-up.

The electronics consisted of:

AMP:
ASR Emitter 1 Exclusive with Separate Power Supply
ASR Audiosysteme Friedrich Schaefer

SOURCE:
PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC Connected to the Apple iMac & Yamaha S2000 CDP (Used as Transport)
PerfectWave DAC | PS Audio

CABLING:
Transparent Audio
Transparent Audio: Interconnects, speaker cables, digital cables, video cables, power conditioning, and power cords for music lovers, audiophiles, home theater enthusiasts, and music and film studio professionals.


Respecting the privacy of the owner, have not clicked any pics of the set-up, just that of the Un-boxing & couple of pics of 1 speaker, so kindly understand.

The Kryptons were well packed from the factory & were easy to unpack with minimal fuss & effort. They are heavy speakers & need finesse to handle. The pair was finished in flat white & looked simplistically beautiful in the room which was white too. The Kryptons are decoupled by means of spikes internally between the cabinet & the plinth base so its very easy to position them without worrying about scratching the flooring. Fantastic idea indeed.

Size wise the Kryptons are about 4.5 feet tall, less than a foot wide & 1.5 feet deep, so besides the height not very big speakers in size. The dual 8 incher mid bass ribbed papyrus coned drivers are coated with a protective coating to provide stiffness to otherwise light & delicate papyrus material & they sandwich a 1 inch titanium tweeter which is placed in a wave guide. The mid bass woofers are placed in a cardioids enclosure which makes the speaker pretty much immune to room interaction & its associated evils. A side firing 10 Inch Aluminium coned woofer nestles in the lower half of each speaker enclosure. Beauty of this arrangement is that one can place the woofer either inwards or outwards, depending on the room wall surroundings.
Placing the Kryptons in a room is relatively simple thanks to the above mentioned cardioids & woofer arrangements, with just a toe in with regard to sweet spot behind the listener & we were done! Makes the placement resolved in a jiffy compared to finicky speakers especially when you can go close to the walls with regard to placement of the Kryptons.

We played a variety of music which consisted of
Jazz, Pop, Rock, Male/Female Vocals, Guitar Virtuosos, Percussion, Horns Based music & each played with such ease with the music sounding the same in all parts of the room & equally balanced/pressurized. This was really an eye opener as such an achievement is very rare! Being On/Off Axis makes no real big deal here.

We listened to music at low, moderate & banana volumes to see what this speaker can do. Doing this revealed another startling persona of the Kryptons. Low & Moderate volume levels revealed a well mannered & eloquent sound, with complete balance & finesse. At really high volumes the Kryptons turned into beasts that were ready to charge & keep going flat out, firing on all cylinders, begging to be driven harder, belting out high & distortion free SPL,making you feel a live arena presence with such ease that it is very easy to keep pushing them harder to levels of sheer madness! WOW, what a speaker :licklips: The magnetic personality of the Kryptons sure is addictive as one just keeps pushing them harder & harder knowing that they love playing at these levels which might make you go deaf in a very short span of time

What these speakers really do well, audiophile wise:
1)Soundstage is wide
2)Depth creation is massive
3)Height & separation of musical instrumentation & placement is very realistic
4)Imaging is bang on & accurate.
5)No box coloration, in fact the boxes disappear completely & thats a huge task for tall speakers. Room effects & associated baggage are bypassed beautifully. It all adds up to remarkably realistic sound.
6)Fatigue free extension across the frequency range which makes it listenable for hours at a stretch. Open extension of Highs, Mids & Super Tiight lows.
7) Fast as a shark in Speed & Timing. They go RATATATATAT like a Bazooka on steroids!

Inspite of being fresh out of the box, the Kryptons gave a very balanced representation across the frequency range, which is a tough ask. The layers of openness just kept improving as the hours went by, making it perform even better.

A very good comparison of the Krytons would be an AMG Mercedes C63 . Both have Jekyl & Hyde Personalities, that one can tap into on demand. Both are heavily understated & mild mannered but when provoked can turn into hooligans! A veritable Sleeper which many might overlook, to their own loss & sheer stupidity.

After hearing the Kryptons I had a sleepless night, as I could not shake their sound out of my head. Seriously understated to look at but the sound was to die for! To me, the Kryptons can make Tuonela ALIVE again. The Kryptons are my current Champ of Champs! Undisputed till a challenger arises from Ilmarinen.

Price of the Kryptons Rs.18L

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Amphion!

Hmmmm... There's that name again!

 

[bras]

Very nice speakers and very good also. I know them very well.They play very good with almost amplifiers and besides their sise they work good in 20 square meters rooms. With ASR they are lovely. A few years ago I was going to buy a pair of Krypton2 to a friend who was the dealer here in Portugal but I had chance to buy a KRaudio Kronzilla SXI and my option was for LIving Voice OBX-RW, it was one of the best set-ups that I have but unfortunately for personal reasons I had to sel the speakers and the amp, and after that Im trying to create a new system and at this moment this is the best I can.

 

[arj]

thanks Denom.. good review !
i think this is a very old model (maybe tweaked) and always been highly regarded. more than 10 years back this used to be the speakers almost always present in the "new Disc Village" at Adelphi and before one bought an audiophile cd or LP the owner ( Ernest ? ) used to play that music on these speakers.. i remember them to be imaging freaks with Great resolution. i forgot the amplification but used to be some monoblocks.


Since Ernest also sold DH cones in those days, i remember him demonstrating the impact of isolation on the soundstage with these speakers and when the position/orientation of the cones was changed the soundstage used to move around as well ! since my system in those was not at that level of resolution, it obviously did not do the same for me...but it was amazing to see that effect

 

[denom]

Amphion!

Hmmmm... There's that name again!

With Good reason to boot ! :clapping:

Very nice speakers and very good also. I know them very well.They play very good with almost amplifiers and besides their sise they work good in 20 square meters rooms. With ASR they are lovely. A few years ago I was going to buy a pair of Krypton2 to a friend who was the dealer here in Portugal but I had chance to buy a KRaudio Kronzilla SXI and my option was for LIving Voice OBX-RW, it was one of the best set-ups that I have but unfortunately for personal reasons I had to sel the speakers and the amp, and after that Im trying to create a new system and at this moment this is the best I can.

Thanks Bras for sharing your experience. I can relate perfectly to them on Both, the Kryptons & the ASR's :licklips: Wish you can get this combo set-up in your home in the near future :thumbsup:

thanks Denom.. good review !
i think this is a very old model (maybe tweaked) and always been highly regarded. more than 10 years back this used to be the speakers almost always present in the "new Disc Village" at Adelphi and before one bought an audiophile cd or LP the owner ( Ernest ? ) used to play that music on these speakers.. i remember them to be imaging freaks with Great resolution. i forgot the amplification but used to be some monoblocks.


Since Ernest also sold DH cones in those days, i remember him demonstrating the impact of isolation on the soundstage with these speakers and when the position/orientation of the cones was changed the soundstage used to move around as well ! since my system in those was not at that level of resolution, it obviously did not do the same for me...but it was amazing to see that effect

Thanks Arj. The Kryptons have been an evolving speaker for the past 15 odd years & were in current iteration as heard by me. Wonder about how well this isolation application you mention might work with the current iteration of the Kryptons as they already have some deadly isolation built into them already, which appear to work fabulously.

 

[arj]

Thanks Arj. The Kryptons have been an evolving speaker for the past 15 odd years & were in current iteration as heard by me. Wonder about how well this isolation application you mention might work with the current iteration of the Kryptons as they already have some deadly isolation built into them already, which appear to work fabulously.

I should have better clarified. this isolation was used under the CDP ..the speakers i believe always had out trigger feet for stability as it had a slim profile. This is a measure how resolving they were even back then.
The only negative back then was they were more towards thin than full bodied(apparently for the entire range) and hence was not much of a hit in Asia. but over time that also seems to have been changed from the above.
this is one speaker I would love to hear sometime

 

[prem]

Hi Arj

The small ones i heard at MPW's place was killer. Extremely musical and tracks each note beautifully.

Based on the experience i had with the mini Amphions, the Kryptons should be absolutely amazing.

 

[prem]

Arj, there are 3 things that i like about the design

1. It uses a cardoid midrange configuration to eliminate back waves. So to some extent its like horn design
2. It uses paper as cone material for the all important mids and mid bass.
3. Modern materials like aluminium and titanium are used for bass and treble so that one gets more extension

This is one of those speakers, in my younger days, i would have bought blind.

A high resolution dac, Hypex amp, DHT pre and Krypton should make a very good combo

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

With Good reason to boot !

Did I ever tell you that I am an undercover operative of the Missing and Misused Commas Brigade? hyeah:

But... I have never heard of this make before. Now you bring two examples to my attention, and it seems both are amazing. And one could be just what I need. All this in two days!

 

[neo]

Glad to see Amphion being discussed so widely on this forum & FM's warming up to the sound. They sound very very good, are very well priced against their competion.
I've been fortunate to audition almost the whole range(even the now discountinued brilliant prio series), except but the 7L & the inwalls.
IMHO the 7L should be the best of bargains amongst it's whole range. Have heard that it's going to be on demo very soon, Can't wait to hear themhyeah:
Cheers