Krell MD-10
A CD transport that Krell's own advertising pitched as "the most advanced evolution of CD playback technology" - and that reviewers kept wiring into their reference systems for years afterward.
Overview
The MD-10 was Krell's statement CD transport, and the company didn't hide its ambitions. Period advertising described the unit as joining "art and science" to deliver performance that would have been inconceivable only a few years earlier. That's marketing copy, but it rested on concrete engineering claims. Krell's own literature billed the MD-10 around a Philips CD ROM transport mechanism, circuitry intended to increase data accuracy and reduce error correction, and a proprietary "Ambient Light Cancellation" system meant to cut down on stray light interference at the pickup. Programming and FTS (favorite track selection) were available from the front panel and from a remote control.
The MD-10 was not a complete CD player. It was a transport, a "CD Transcription Turntable," as the advertising styled it, designed to feed an outboard digital-to-analog converter. That mattered to the buyers Krell was courting. In the early 1990s, separating transport from converter let an owner upgrade the digital front end in stages, and the MD-10 was built to sit at the head of that chain. The advertising also made a point of looks, coupling what Krell called "stunning aesthetics" to the high technology inside.
The MD-10's real reputation was earned in other people's listening rooms. It shows up again and again in the equipment lists of period reviews as the reference transport of choice. When a magazine's reviewers keep a transport in their own systems across multiple issues and multiple years, that's a stronger endorsement than any single review verdict.
When Audio (September 1995, p.80) reviewed the Krell KPS-20i, the magazine noted that the newer player outperformed "the earlier Krell MD-10 transport and Reference 64" combination. That's a backhanded compliment: the MD-10 was the benchmark the newer, more expensive Krell had to beat. It also confirms the MD-10's natural partner, the Reference 64 D/A converter, and shows the transport was still a meaningful reference point years after its introduction.
On the used market the MD-10 has held its value. Period dealer listings from the mid-1990s show it trading well above most CD players of the era. For context, the same listings priced Krell's CD1 player at $1,599 - $1,669 and the MD-2 at $2,099 - $2,375. The MD-10 sat at the top of the used Krell digital hierarchy, roughly double the cost of the company's own integrated players. That premium reflects both its original standing and the fact that transports of this caliber were built to last. Collectors note that a transport is only as good as its laser and mechanism, and the MD-10's Philips-based CD ROM transport is the part that matters most when evaluating a survivor today.
A transport with no internal DAC is only useful if you have a converter to feed, and the MD-10's natural companion, the Reference 64, is a separate and equally collectible box. Buyers should expect to source both, or to pair the transport with a modern outboard DAC, which is a perfectly reasonable way to keep one in service. The Ambient Light Cancellation system and the data-accuracy circuitry are period engineering claims that are difficult to verify decades on. Working examples still turn up, and the people who owned them new tended to keep them.
Krell built the MD-10 around the idea that the disc-reading mechanism needed the same care as a turntable, hence the "CD Transcription Turntable" language, and priced and finished it accordingly. Whether the Ambient Light Cancellation and error-correction claims delivered audible improvements is something each owner has to judge with their own converter. The MD-10 did earn a place in the reference systems of the magazines that reviewed the era's digital gear.
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