“With the Krell Phantom III, you’ve got nothing to worry about, as this is one hell of a DAC and preamp combination …”

We are excited to announce that shipments of the Phantom III preamplifier with the optional Digital-to-Analog Converter module is now shipping. Recently, Brian Kahn of HomeTheaterReview.com reviewed the Phantom III and came away very impressed.

Some highlights are below.

“I want to hear what the master tape sounds like – what the session sounded like – and the Krell Phantom III took me right there.” 

The optional DAC module adds 1 AES/EBU, 2 coaxial and 2 optical digital inputs that accept PCM signals up to 24-bit/192-kHz resolution. All digital signals are fed to an ESS Sabre ES 9018 DAC.  Different from conventional designs, the resulting analog signal is kept in its native current, rather than voltage, domain. Removing this conversion maintains the finest musical details which are then sent to our  discrete Krell Current Mode, balanced circuitry.

 “The sound quality of the Phantom III is extremely good and on par with the best of the best from the top audiophile companies.”

Circuitry Highlights

The Phantom preamplifier is a dual monaural design with the left and right channels afforded their own power supply regulation and individual circuit boards. All signal gain is executed with surface mount technology using proprietary multiple-output current mirrors with nearly 500 times the open loop linearity of other designs. Featuring 700 kHz bandwidth in a zero feedback, balanced, Krell Current Mode design, the Phantom III shares the same design philosophy as its bigger brother, the flagship Phantom preamplifier.  Negative feedback is not used anywhere in the preamp, nor is it necessary. Open-loop distortion is typically less than 0.003%. The volume control is realized with a balanced resistor ladder – bandwidth and transient response of the preamp circuitry are virtually unaffected by the volume setting.  The headphone circuitry is identical to the main circuitry, offering private listening with the same performance as speaker playback.

“The sound quality of the headphone circuit is on par with some of the standalone headphone amplifiers and much better than the commonly found afterthought headphone outputs on so many products.” 

Power Supply Highlights

Oversized for a preamplifier, the power supply features a 95 VA transformer and 40,000 µF of capacitance giving it the ability to respond quickly to musical demands. The large power supply improves noise rejection and renders the Phantom III impervious to all but the most severe AC voltage power fluctuations.  A new eco-friendly standby mode reduces power consumption to 2W.

The Phantom III preamplifier is available in silver or black finish.