KingRex T20U & PSU MKII System with John Blue JB3 Loudspeakers Review

I ran the two units together.  By itself, the T20U amp was fairly good but sounded a little rough on strings and seemed to have thinner bass depth.  If you can swing it, the PSU MKII is an improvement.  I felt there was a larger sense of the hall and this was noticeable on “Casino Nation” on the Jackson Brown Acoustic Vol 2 disc.  As in a live recording, Jackson often converses with the audience and with the PSU you get more of a sense of the hall, air and breath.  Indeed, decay on the guitar box and piano especially was improved rather greatly and I feel that PSU is worth the additional cost, especially if you plan to use quality loudspeakers where you’re more apt to notice the improvement.

As a two-box unit, the combinedheight is roughly equal to my Line Magnetic LM-215CD player but you could place them side by side where they would be roughly the width of a CD player, and about half as deep.  The Trends Audio gear is more compact but the KingRex amplifier offers more power at 20 watts.  The Trends Audio is a different sort of product being a tube preamplifier and offering a headphone output.  That system had two class T power amps to operate in a bi-amp configuration.

The KingRex system is a better system overall largely on the back of the JB3 loudspeakers.  Fortunately, I was able to review both amplifiers on my Audio Note loudspeakers.  The gap closes as a result and The Trends PA10 with its tube stage offers the user more tube rolling options and the ability to improve its sound.  Still, the KingRex T20U combined with the PSU MKII offers a richer, deeper presentation and as a combination is a step up over the Trends system (with stock tube).

But what may further tip the scales is the fact that the KingRex T20U has an onboard USB DAC.  Granted, this DAC isn’t cutting edge in that it is a “Burr-Brown PCM2702E which is 32/44.1/48 KHz ready 16-bit” affair.  Still, if you have not yet taken the computer audio path this is a nice addition.  Since the vast majority of recordings are still of 44.1KHz, this is a highly affordable way to get into computer audio.  I preferred the sound quality via my Line Magnetic CD player playing the same recordings but this is a higher-quality $1,500 tube CD player.  The T20U’s USB DAC was acceptably clean, leaning a little to the warm side of the spectrum slightly softening cymbals and transient attack and thus was never fatiguing.

The installation was a breeze as well – my computer took about 20 seconds to “install drivers” and it worked immediately playing all of my computer audio files regardless of format or recording.  For those not versed in computer audio, the T20U played all my recordings whether 16/44.1, 24/96, or 24/192, though it won’t take advantage of the higher resolution formats.  But again the amplifier is a strong buy even if this DAC was not on board, so the fact that you get one and it’s a pleasing one at that then makes it a fine value-added feature.  Now, 24/192 capability in itself doesn’t mean you will get superior sound.  It’s kind of like megapixels in a camera.  You can have a 20 megapixel camera, but a camera with a far superior lens and only 6 megapixels will take better quality photos, and a great 16/44 or 24/96 DAC will beat a lesser DAC that does 24/192 or better – just as Audio Note non-oversampling CD players sound better than numerous SACD players playing SACDs.  But if numbers matter, KingRex does offer the UD 384 USB DAC which is capable of 32/384 conversion.