My early DC 300 A's, 150a's and Psa2's were great amps in many respects. They were poor with high frequencies, though. A DC 300 A above 10 Khz at 4 ohms was rather poor and worse at 3 ohms. All the Crowns we ever used in commercial installations had to be treated with extreme care as they had just the bare minimum heat sinks needed and their power supplies were just adequate. Later models the margins were even closer. Where Hif fi amps can put out 50 % more power for 40 milliseconds even Crown amps to day can only put out 10 to 20 % more than rated for a brief 10 milliseconds. Crown amps tend to be dry and hard sounding. Which is fine with PA systems with large heavy cones and HF drivers with limited HF output and heavy diaphragms that are well damped. Hook a Crown to a resonant HF driver is the combination can be rather austere and un pleasant. Hi fi amps have extended frequency range and more margins built in better units. Class D amps and amps with switching power supplies used in commercial service just don't work well in the home. I admit class D amps have improved tremendously, but if you take one home and put some time on it an then bring home a good traditional amp the listening experience is different. Whether its a positive experience is up to you. In my system I had 16 db of head room using my Crown amps above loud levels. 90 db at 16 ft. So over 30 years my only issue was getting the amps rebuilt every 10 years. I since gone back to Mac amps. My original headphone amp, MC 2505 is now 45 years old and except for cleaning of controls and switches is as new. My 2100's are still running according to a friend of mine. I suppose the 2200's are also. MY 207's and 206 are close to 10 years old and have yet to be touched. Yes they sound different than the 2100's , 2200.'s Crowns, and Mac tube amps. There is a freedom from HF distortion, more stable imaging, and voices and instruments don't drift between the speakers. Highs above 6 kHz are more pleasant and less fatiguing. The bass is now as good as with The Crowns with the replacement of the MX 119 and 120 with a MX 151. I blamed the bass issue on the Macs amps at first below 70 hz, but that just proves how wrong you can be.
