Recent Convert to Pro-Audio Amps

[kconnor]

A few years ago I downsized the components of my entire stereo system. I’m getting older and I no longer felt like moving big heavy speakers and amplifiers around when called for. I sold the Philips 5781 I was using and bought a Crown D75 amplifier for the interim as I looked for a permanent replacement for the Philips. Great performer for the $135 I paid for it. That got me to thinking that maybe I should look at some pro-audio amps while I’m browsing about.
After deciding what I wanted in an amp and several month of research I found myself leaning toward pro-audio amplifiers. I found the build quality and sophistication of amplification and protection circuitry of some of the better offerings from Crown and Crest to be on par with the best that high-end home amplifiers had to offer. At a cost that was several times less than what you would pay for comparable home amps. I understand that some pro-audio amps are industrial looking and lack the glamour and glitz of the home stuff. For me the tradeoff is the much higher cost to performance ratio you get from the better pro gear like Crown Macro and Crest amplifiers.
I finally settled on a very nice unblemished Crest 3301 that I got off eBay for $140. I think it sounds great and it has power to spare. For the quality/ price ratio pro-audio is hard to beat.

 

[jaybirdss396]

I'm a convert to pro-audio amps. About a year ago I bought a Crown XTI 2000 brand new off ebay for $275. 475 wpc into 8 ohms 800 wpc into 4 ohms! It has input attenuator knobs on the front for each channel, lots of protection circuitry and is dead quiet.

I bought two XLR to RCA adapters for $12 and was good to go. Never had any problems with hum or input level matching. The fans in these only come on when needed and I have only had the fan come on once. They are powering Klipsch Chorus IIs which are very efficient so at anything less than ear splitting volume the fan never comes on. Plus the silver face matches well with vintage gear.

For the money I spent I am very happy with this amp.

Cheap, reliable, Big Power!

 

[reggaenaut]

To each his own! However the years I have always associated pro amps with a lack of finesse.

 

[Tom Brennan]

Back in the 70s Crown amps were sold in hi-fi stores as top shelf hi-fi amps and quite a few Crownies were unaware they were also used as pro amps. Lots of guys drove Klipschorns and big Altecs and JBLs with Crowns, they were happily unaware those speakers "need tubes".

 

[89grand]

To each his own! However the years I have always associated pro amps with a lack of finesse.

That doesn't seem to be the case though.

 

[Scott594]

To each his own! However the years I have always associated pro amps with a lack of finesse.

I used to think that way. I've been through the esoteric stuff since the late 70's and had everything from Dynaco tube stuff, some SET amps I built a couple of years ago, and a lot of Class A SS stuff, much of it that I built myself. To add to that I was a service tech, Waldom authorized re-coner for many years. Also an avid hobbist. I had that same attitude for much of that time. I guess age brings tolerance, but I've been branching out into areas I had previously discounted as "crude" in the past 2 or 3 years. This includes assorted digital stuff, Class T and that kind of stuff. Having serviced a lot of pro stuff, a couple stuck in my mind as being better than I'd expect, so I started investigating. I now own a pair of Ashley FTX-2001m, and a NOS Brand new in the box 1000m (Very cool, has the original paperwork intact, warranty card unsent, even a Ashly bumber sticker. - it was found buried in the backroom of a closing Pro music store )

Anyway, they are standing toe to toe with my Tube and Class A gear, but I can't really open them up as I'm currently running a nice set of 604c's
The sound is there. There are differences, but I sure would never guess I was listening to a KW of "brutish" professional gear with untold thousands of hours on it. (The 2000Ms came out of a movie theater)

<.005% THD at 1100w @ 4ohms bridged, Full Class A operation, Will tolerate loads to 0 ohms, utterly stable and well behaved - It's hard not to like them.
(.005% is best case @ 1khz, Worse case is 0.05%)

The downsides are the total lack of snooty factor (although, in the right crowd (i.e. Rock Stars and Roadies, you're a rock star), obnoxious curb weight of 46lbs (feels more like 460), and the fans which ruin the the signal to noise ratio at low levels (got that fixed, not needed at all running the 604s)
The 1000 is more handleable and has more than enough grunt for most situations.

I continue to explore areas of audio where I've never really thoughly investigated before. Right now I'm working on a pair of 18' Sub-woofers (Also not audiophile cool - at least when and where I come from) I've got a pair of Seismic Audio Madrid 18" drivers (impressive sensitivity and high end extension - at least on the spec sheet), and am putting together a modular pair with bass cabinets, and a pair of Altec 811b horns on top. Maybe I'll like the result. Ought to be memorable on those Ashlys anyway. Mostly just experimenting, I'm really quite happy with my 604's on a SS Class A fed by a D103r. That's my main listening setup and I like it. I'm physically limited because of health issues, and have found this sort of experimenting is fun, and something I can do. (moving the 3/4 birch 7 ply is a real challenge right now though)

Sorry to ramble on, but my point is that at least some of the pro gear is much better than it's been given credit for. I'm waiting for a Crown 400 or such to find me, as that's another one that I remember sounding better than it should after I repaired them. I never had time to really shake out all that equipment that went by - funny how the customers wanted it back.

I guess it's OK that so many people think the vintage pro gear is all junk, it keeps the prices reasonable for those of us who disgree.

 

[glen65]

I just inherited a Peavey PV-2000 power amp from someone
who didn't want to spend the money for the repair. The thing is a
monster weighing in at about 75lbs. Has a massive power transformer,
and the output section contains 14 output transistors per channel.
The unit has an issue that I'm currently working on. I will be interested
to hear how it sounds once I'm finished.

 

[70salesguy]

However the years I have always associated pro amps with a lack of finesse.

How do you measure finesse? :scratch2:

 

[Tom Brennan]

Years ago I was given a big Peavey amp, about 200 wpc or so, and it was the most obnoxious sounding amplifier I've heard. Thing sounded like a Stuka screaming down on a road full of refugees.

 

[glen65]

Years ago I was given a big Peavey amp, about 200 wpc or so, and it was the most obnoxious sounding amplifier I've heard. Thing sounded like a Stuka screaming down on a road full of refugees.

I'll find out relativity soon if this one is the same way.
This one is rated at 370wpc into 8 ohms with a THD of .07%

 

[Scott594]

Years ago I was given a big Peavey amp, about 200 wpc or so, and it was the most obnoxious sounding amplifier I've heard. Thing sounded like a Stuka screaming down on a road full of refugees.

I had a roomate when I was in college, and he had a Peavy stack setup that he used to DJ school dances and such.
That equipment would make your ears bleed!

In our apartment, we had both our systems set up side by side,

My stuff consisted of homemade Model 19 copies, a homemade 15wpc class A Preamp and power amp combo (often replaced by a 60wpc Rotel reciever when I wanted to crank it) and a Garrard TT with M91ed.

Joe's system was the aforementioned Peavy gear - 200wpc death amp and 2 "Black Widow" (The name fits well) Cabinets fed by a Radio Shack mixer and a couple unknown p mount TTs.

The 19 copies and Black Widows (PV-3's I think they were) both consisted of 15" LF drivers and large horns over the top. The enclosures were almost the same size.
BUT - you couldn't get more dis-similar sounding gear.

At the time I was working at a TV & Audio shop(next door to our apt) as a service tech, and was going to school for EE, and I remember pulling the drawings for that Peavy Amp and trying to figure out exactly what they were doing that made it cause PAIN like it did. I still don't know. It was a boiler plate Push-pull Bi-polar transistor amp. I can only guess that transistors were extremely unmatched, and there was a lot of non-linearity and crossover distortion going on. Wish I could look at it again, knowing what I know now.

I can't remember the model #. Sure sounds like the one Tom described so accurately. - I was trying to remember the model and kept coming up with 200 something, but I just re-read back through the thread and I'll bet it's the PV-2000 Glen is talking about, fits that description too. This one was 10 or 12 inches high, 30 or so wide, and maybe 14" deep. Had all the weight in one end - (Xfmr) and about 16 output transistors that crossed to GE-14's and 15's (at the time)covered by a plastic guard. Black crinkle vinyl cabinet. Seems like it had more than the usual amount of tone controls.

That one Peavy amp (and it's brethren in subsequent years) were primarily responsible for my opinion of Pro gear for the next 30 years.



So I do understand why people generally have a bad opinion of pro stuff.

 

[motorstereo]

Hearing those stories about the big peaveys makes me feel a little bit better now. A couple weeks ago I picked up a big and heavy peavy power amp at a yard sale for almost nothing. I brought it home plugged it in and it released the magic smoke. How someone could mess up an almost indestructible pro power amp escapes my thinking. No great loss though now it seems.

 

[BMWCCA]

I'm waiting for a Crown 400 or such to find me, as that's another one that I remember sounding better than it should after I repaired them.

I guess it's OK that so many people think the vintage pro gear is all junk, it keeps the prices reasonable for those of us who disgree.

Very true. I have two PS400s and four PS200s. I paid as little as $100 and no more than $200 for each of them. They sound even better than the venerable DC300A-II and D150A-II they replaced in my JBL 4345 system. I've used Crown in my home hi-fi since buying the first one brand new from a hi-fi dealer who also sold McIntosh back in the early '70s. I used to bring my D150 (naked amp) to all the McIntosh clinics back then (along with my C20) and still have their evaluation sheets. The flattest line and lowest distortion and noise of any amp they ever tested while I was there. :thmbsp:

 

[reggaenaut]

How do you measure finesse? :scratch2:

You cannot.

 

[kconnor]

The Crest amplifier that I chose is structually and electronically over engineered compared to most home amps. It has a heavy guage one piece steel chassis, torodial transformer, true complemetary symmetry output configuation with the latest high speed transistors. It runs very cool due to dual variable speed fans. It outputs 240 wpc <0.025% THD+N is stable to 2 ohms. All these are features command a premium price in home amplifiers.
I think the brutish appearance of most pro-amps might lead some to believe that they must sound that way. Before this I thought that way a bit myself. I decided to make my decision based on merit alone and put my prejudices to the side. I couldn't be happer.

 

[Scott594]

I used to bring my D150 (naked amp) to all the McIntosh clinics back then (along with my C20) and still have their evaluation sheets. The flattest line and lowest distortion and noise of any amp they ever tested while I was there. :thmbsp:

Bet they got you a coffee and made sure you had plenty of help getting that gear right back in your car.

Actually, most of those that I went to back then were pretty low pressure and all in good fun. I do remember a couple where they wern't very nice about homemade and tricked out low buck stuff beating their high end stuff. Most times, they knew we couldn't afford the high end stuff, and didn't care. The Audio Classics bunch is like that these days. No snobbery of tag team sales pressure, they just like to show off their stuff and wow! what stuff!

Wish they still did those, they were fun.
I only live about 90 miles from Audio Classics (and Big Mc). I'm due for trip pretty soon. I'll have to ask if they do test & tunes or Clinics anymore. It cost me money every time I go down though.

Hope I can find a Crown to play with as cheap as you did. I never seem to find the goodwill and Craigslist deals everybody else does.

 

[gip111]

Couple of years ago I was given a partially working Yamaha PRO-2500, took my time, got it working and it has become my main amp. I have used it with different preamps and at the moment I have it connected to my PC using an Audio DJ-2 DAC from Native Instruments in between and the sound is just great, super tight bass and clean, clear and crisp all the way through.
BTW Im driving a pair of ADS L-1290's with it.

 

[Scott594]

You have to appreciate the old Yamahas

Gip111 - That doesn't suprise me.

Back in the day (as they say), I was pretty (and probably unfairly) anti-Japanese as far as equipment went. (Sonys unorthodox design of their TVs back then drove me nuts as a service tech - but heck, everybody uses switching supplies now). (But not trinitron crts, so maybe I wasn't totally nuts)

I honestly have to say Yamaha equipment always had the "feel" of proffessional (or commercial) gear. Things like board layouts, the fact they always spent the money to silkscreen the top of the boards, Having test points where needed, output transistors in sockets and using metal parts where plastic would have worked always left you with the feeling you were dealing with a piece of pro equipment even if it was one of the cheaper lines. Their low end mixers and synths really showed this.

I even had a "junker" 292 single cylinder snowmobile made by them that was built the same way and ran much better than it had any right to. The parts people never minded finding what I needed for a nearly obsolete machine.

I havn't had a lot of experience with their current stuff, but I still highly respect the company and if any of their vintage gear crosses my path I'll bite. The fact that it's so well made is probably why the prices on the old Yammies stay so high.