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Crown Amps, the hype is real!

lattiboy

lattiboy

Well-Known Member
I’ve been hearing about using “pro” amps in favor of more expensive consumer amps for a while now. On a lark, I picked up a crown XTI 2000 about a year ago. I hadn’t really needed it in then, but it was too good a deal to pass up and it promptly entered my stack of unused audio equipment. “Mount Someday” is what I’ve dubbed this pile of weird DACs, amps, TTs, and other odds and ends which take up 40% of the floor real estate in my home office.

I picked up a pair of monitor audio RS six speakers yesterday morning and immediately hooked them up to my existing set up, which was driven by a Parasound HCA 1203a; a very respectable three channel THX power amplifier putting out about 150 wpc.

In all the reviews I read of the monitor audio speakers, it was mentioned they performed best with as much power as humanly possible. Sure enough I found myself driving my preamp to near 80% and then exclaimed to nobody in particular, “WE NEED MO POWAH!”

After a whole lot of re-wiring and usb bullshit (The crown Windows app is the work of the devil!) I finally got the Crown up and running and sweet baby jesus why are people buying any other amps under $5000!?!???

Advisory: outside of solid state versus tube I do not believe power amplifiers of similar actual power output ever sound terribly different. Yes, I am fully aware that there are differences, but in the scheme of actual sound output of any given system I rate power amplification near the bottom, just above audio cables and power conditioners (which absolutely do effect sound, but IMO a relatively small amount)

I have owned my share of nice power amplifiers, the pinnacle being a serviced Marantz 510M which produced just over 400wpc when I had it adjusted and requested it be power rated. I just recently sold a Sony ES 9000 to a fellow AKer. Both of those weighed 3x the Crown and I sold the Marantz for 10x the street price of the used Crown.

I’m currently sitting here with the crown driving the monitor audios and my preamp at about 40%. It sounds as good or better than just about every audio system I’ve ever owned.

I just finished listening to my Tidal playlist of the 10 songs I judge all equipment by and now feel completely comfortable offering my unqualified endorsement of these amps (My understanding is that any of the XLS or XTI amps offer similar quality) to anybody who isn’t going to drop $5000 on an amplifier. Save the money for any other portion of your sound system!
 
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I owned Crown at. one time, for many years. They do have a sound of their own. Depending on the speaker system driven the Crowns can be quite good. But a lot of times they come across to cold and austere which I found to be the case with my current speakers that. are quite efficient, so I went back to Mcintosh amps with out autoformers, to give the smoother less fatiguing sound. Now I admit that the amps are pretty equal from 70 to 300 Hz, the Crowns being better by bit below 70 HZ, but the Macs are so much superior above 300 HZ, and that where the austerity of Crown amps can become nasty.
 
Ive thought similar for a while. of course it will depend on speakers and source. I just sold the last of my Carver amps. I realized that I had enough money in 1 single Carver to buy 4 Ashly Audio amps that would be more power and sound as good.

I have run Crowns and Yamaha also but I am now testing out a QSC RMX2450. its well known and not as old as some of the other pro amps I have used. I am also waiting on a QSC Powerlight amp which is some form of class D from QSC.

I have read people say the pro stuff is inferior or whatever. I guess it depends on what you have but in my system I must say the Pro amps have been hard to tell difference in from them or t he many regular home amps I have tried.

if these QSC dont work out I will go back to the tried and true 60lb Ashly Amps or Crown.
 
I guess I'm the only one running the Crown XLi amps. I have a 2500 on my JBL 240Ti's and one on my 250Ti's and being fed by the two pre-outs on one of my R-117's. I believe they are A/B class amps. They sound fine to these old ears.
 
I run a PSA-2XH (eXtended Headroom) made specifically for ShowCo. It has 2 dB more headroom (~60% more power) than the PSA-2 by using the Japanese taps on the transformer and upping the working voltage on the caps.
DSC_00124.JPG


I use it bridged to power my sub (JBL W15GTi) at ~800 WRMS into the 12 ohm load.
 
twiiii said:
I owned Crown at. one time, for many years. They do have a sound of their own. Depending on the speaker system driven the Crowns can be quite good. But a lot of times they come across to cold and austere which I found to be the case with my current speakers that. are quite efficient,
Click to expand...

Trying to translate: If "cold and austere" means "no added 2nd harmonic distortion or coloration, plain, simple, and severe", then that's describing the performance of an ideal amplifier.

so I went back to Mcintosh amps with out autoformers, to give the smoother less fatiguing sound. Now I admit that the amps are pretty equal from 70 to 300 Hz, the Crowns being better by bit below 70 HZ, but the Macs are so much superior above 300 HZ, and that where the austerity of Crown amps can become nasty.
Click to expand...

How did you measure this?
 
noisefreq said:
Do you live inside a concert hall?
This thing puts out 475 watts per channel.
Even at 40%... that's loud.
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it’s a 25x24’ room, so it’s pretty big. Additionally, the pre outs on my Denon receiver are relatively low output from what I’ve read. I need to get a separate 2 channel input chain setup with a dedicated preamp, but currently I use the “pure direct” mode when listening to Tidal on the Denon. It goes CCA>Musical Fidelity vDAC>Denon 3500H>Crown XTI2000
 
I’ve run vintage Crown.
Great power and sound like what you feed them.

FWIW, some serious power for little coin can be found in Crest Audio amps. I had a something-1100, 550wpc. I don’t remember any noise floor, something I notice on big commercial amps at times.
 
lattiboy said:
...I’m currently sitting here with the crown driving the monitor audios and my preamp at about 40%. It sounds as good or better than just about every audio system I’ve ever owned...and now feel completely comfortable offering my unqualified endorsement of these amps...to anybody who isn’t going to drop $5000 on an amplifier. Save the money for any other portion of your sound system!
Click to expand...

Strong statement and one that is possible for those who have evolved past the psycho-acoustics trap. Older Crowns feature boat anchor transformers and banks of metal die T-03 outputs. They are over built, have tons of headroom, and can drive low impedance speakers without breaking a sweat. These are all qualities necessary for the harsh pro environment but they are also qualities that the highest quality home amps possess. I've seen 300 wpc pro amps on the bench performing square wave reproduction test and the traces are near perfect. What all this translates to is superior dynamics, crystal clear peaks, bass that is tight and hard, and quiet spaces that are incredibly dark.
 
gentlejax said:
Ive thought similar for a while. of course it will depend on speakers and source. I just sold the last of my Carver amps. I realized that I had enough money in 1 single Carver to buy 4 Ashly Audio amps that would be more power and sound as good.

I have run Crowns and Yamaha also but I am now testing out a QSC RMX2450. its well known and not as old as some of the other pro amps I have used. I am also waiting on a QSC Powerlight amp which is some form of class D from QSC.

I have read people say the pro stuff is inferior or whatever. I guess it depends on what you have but in my system I must say the Pro amps have been hard to tell difference in from them or t he many regular home amps I have tried.

if these QSC dont work out I will go back to the tried and true 60lb Ashly Amps or Crown.
Click to expand...

I have a couple of RMX2450a amps running my "rock" system. Clean and powerful. But the fans are too loud for me. I will be replacing the cooling fans if I keep them. I also have a PLX-3102 that sounds delightful. You can tell it has absolute control over the drivers not matter which speakers I have used with it. I also have a PLX-1802 that I am planning to use with an electronic crossover in the future.
 
SoCal Sam said:
I've seen 300 wpc pro amps on the bench performing square wave reproduction test and the traces are near perfect.
Click to expand...

Square wave performance is a red herring if you're not troubleshooting a broken amp. The rise time and ringing are the result of output inductors and Zobel networks, not to mention the frequency response of the signal generator and cable impedances. You don't need (or even want) power bandwidth too far into the ultrasonic, no good can come of that. If you're -3dB is at 100kHz, past about 10kHz your square waves become decidedly less square. But who cares? By Nyquist your square wave can become a perfect sine at 20kHz and nobody will hear the difference.
Full power square waves aren't even much of a torture test, since they give maximum efficiency (minimum output device dissipation) in *all* amplifier classes.
 
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