Engineered with home cinema enthusiasts in mind and made in Australia, Krix has introduced the KA-1100 Subwoofer Amplifier. Mat Daley tested it out.

Krix needs no introduction here in Australia. You only need to look a handful of replies down in any home cinema forum post asking, “what speakers should I get?” before someone proclaims Krix as king.

What they aren’t known for, until now perhaps, is amplification. With the release of the new KA-1100 Subwoofer Amplifier, Krix is taking amplification of their subwoofers into their own hands. Designed in-house at Krix specifically to power the MX-5, MX-10, Cyclonix 11 and Cyclonix 12 passive subwoofers, the KA-1100 is a perfect match to get the most out of these already great Krix subs.

First impressions

My first impression on opening the box is that this is a beautiful amp – if a piece of rack mount kit can ever be such a thing. The brushed aluminium fascia that magnetically attaches to the front, to cover the controls once they have been set, has a nice premium feel that would make it look at home in any high-end rack.

With only a single task to perform, the rest of the amp is really as it should be, simple and understated, something I’d say is a hallmark of Krix in general and certainly not a bad thing. That said, what dials and buttons it does have all feel solid and in line with the quality expected in an amp of this calibre.

Install and setup

Installation of the KA-1100 was simple with the included rack ears and being a class D amp weighing only 5.3kg, manoeuvring it into the rack was painless. In ten minutes flat it was powered up and ready to go.

Selecting ‘Mode 1’ on the front panel matched the MX-5 subwoofer pair I used for testing. This gives an output of 300W per channel at 4Ω, applies high and low pass filters as well as some soft limiting specifically suited to the MX-5 subs and Cyclonix 11. ‘Mode 2’ ups the output to 500W per channel for use with the MX-10 subs and Cyclonix 12 and ‘Mode 3’ pumps out a full 700W per channel in full range mode, removing the low pass filter.

There is an important point to note for anyone considering using this amp in other configurations though. Krix states in the user manual that: “The speaker outputs are ‘dual hot’ i.e. there is signal on both positive and negative terminals. This means that internally the outputs are already in a ‘bridged’ or BTL configuration and therefore the outputs cannot be bridged again.”

This isn’t a problem if used as intended but worth noting. For input options, Krix gives you balanced XLR as well as unbalanced RCA ins at the rear of the amp with a “Single Input” button located on the front panel to link a single feed to the two output channels if needed.

To test the KA-1100 I took a common streaming amplifier to power my front left and right, forgoing the centre channel for this test. I used the sub out to go to the KA-1100 and in turn to the MX-5 subs. The auto-sense on triggered immediately and the amp came to life.

Performance

Playing some well-known instrumental tracks from Dr. Dre’s 2001, the subs showed the ability to easily deliver the heavy kicks drums through sustained bass notes at relatively high volume with warmth and attack. Straight away, I felt like I was getting more out of these subs than I was previously.

Of course, I needed to push them to their limit. Pushing the input volume higher brought into play another great feature of this amp, the auto input limiter. As indicated by an LED on the front panel the KA-1100 started to softly limit the input signal. Although the LED lit up, there was no noticeable distortion and no audible change to the low end other than volume. If the output is reaching the limit of the selected subs the amp will also apply some output limiting. I found this limiting slightly noticeable but admittedly I was intentionally pushing them too hard and it’s a small price to pay for not killing your subs.

At the intended levels though, you certainly get the feeling that Krix has truly tailored this amp to their speakers allowing you to extract every last bit of performance from them. Spending more time with some of my go-to bass stress test tracks like Billie Eilish’s Bury a Friend, what became apparent is that when paired with Krix subs as intended, it would be very hard to get a bad result, even if you didn’t quite know what you are doing.

The manual is well-written, intuitive and given that the subs are a known quantity, the recommended phase and crossover settings yield great results straight off the bat while still giving you all the control to make further adjustments from there if you need to.

Once I had these subs dialled in, I happily spent a few hours just listening and admiring how effortlessly this amp/sub combo delivered my favourite sub-heavy tracks.

It’s worth mentioning that the cooling of the amplifier is completely fanless and during the whole test session, I didn’t notice any noise from the amp itself. This is an important feature in managing your noise floor if this amp has to be located in the room.

Conclusion

All in all, Krix have delivered exactly what they set out to achieve here, a no-brainer match for their subs that guarantees performance. It’s exciting to see Krix take over one more part of the signal chain and make sure their subs are heard as they should be.

Install and setup is uncomplicated and the overall look and feel of the unit is fitting for the type of rooms and equipment racks it will no doubt be used in. At $2,195 RRP it makes perfect sense to pair the KA-1100 with its intended subs knowing that you will be getting the best out of them. Hopefully, we see Krix release some additional models for all of their subwoofers soon.