2. amps-preamps
  3. 1210157254

Can pro amps possibly sound good? Crown, QSC, etc

I have been looking into pro amps for a to-be-built HT/music room. Recently I came across an old review in The Stereo Times: The Complete Audiophile Magazine, which reviewed 2 discontinued Crown amps, the K2 and the Studio Reference I. The K2 the reviewer thought "not distinguished or especially musically refined", but the Studio Ref he thought an EXCELLENT full-range amp. It does have some amazing specs:

Signal-to-Noise (A-weighted) below rated full bandwidth power: 120 dB.
Damping Factor: >20,000 from 10 Hz to 400Hz.
780WPC into 8 ohms, 1160WPC into 4 ohms.

The review is here.

From what I've found so far, there are possbile downsides to using pro gear in an otherwise consumer setup, but in my case I think these are non-issues:

-fan noise: not an issue for me since I will have an equipment closet. Won't have to do a "fan mod".

-ugly: again, not an issue for me with an equipment closet

-hum: I believe not an issue as long as I use balanced interconnects from the prepro. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

-expects pro-level input levels: I think not an issue if the amp has dip switches or gain controls?

And yet, over on a couple of AVS forum threads, I actually got asked to leave when I started suggesting pro amps. It seems as though some of the audiophiles there (and the same guys might be over here) don't even want to hear about a class of gear which imo just MIGHT sound good. It just isn't worth "polluting" an audiophile thread. Am I missing some other downside to pro amps, other than the above pints? Were these guys attitudes based on something substantive and audibly detectable, or just a form of audio bigotry?

I'm not saying all pro amps are going to be great (for instance I know the Behringer A500 is lousy), but might there be some good stuff too, like QSC DCA, or Crown Macro Reference (other suggestions would be welcome)?
syswei

Showing 4 responses by ait

ait
480 posts
 
I use a Crown XLS-802D ($599.00 retail) to drive my living room and patio systems at home, and it sounds excellent, even though this series is often derided since it is made in China. It pumps out 800 wpc into 4 ohms, 500 wpc into 8 ohms. I run it off my Supratek Chenin tube preamp with no problems - the output of the Chenin is split so that half goes to the Crown and half to my main rig. In the living room it drives Magnepan MGMC1 speakers with a powered Monitor Audio R720 sub, and on the patio it drives KLH outdoor speakers and a passive subwoofer. It is driving all this through about 200 feet of CL3R in-wall cable and two Niles impedance-matching volume controls (set to 2X setting) and doesn't even break a sweat. Not quite the sound quality of my audiophile rig in the family room, but pretty darned close for the money.

It is built very solidly, with large heat sinks and a huge toroid. I think Crown has made several improvements to this series between the 802A and the 802D, and I am impressed by what I got for $599.00
ait
480 posts
 
Oh, and I forgot:

Crown was offering a $120.00 mail-in rebate at the time, so the actual price ended up being $479.00. Outstanding value in my mind.
ait
480 posts
 
Maybe it's the really nice front end stuff I have feeding it (Zero One Mercury CD/HD and Supratek Chenin tube preamp), but the Crown sounds fine to me for casual listening. YMMV
ait
480 posts
 
I run the Gilmore Raven amp in my main rig, with Zu Druids. Since I'm using different speakers in the LR and patio, extracting what part comes from the amp and what from the speakers, cable, volume control, etc. is impossible, but I don't hear anything from the LR and patio systems that I would deem offensive, let's put it that way. I have not substituted the Crown for the Gilmore in my main system, mainly because the required cabling is different (XLR versus RCA) and I'm too lazy to pull it all apart and put it back together just for curiosity's sake.
More to discover