2. amps-preamps
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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 3 responses by wolf_garcia

wolf_garcia
6,757 posts
 
I use thousands of watts in a live show, 12 single ended tube amp watts per side for my hifi rig (well…not counting my subs).
wolf_garcia
6,757 posts
 
In my studio area with the piles of bass and guitar amps and a synth, I use an ancient (relatively) Alesis RA 100 (no fans, just large heatsinks) amp powering a pair of Mackie 10" 2 way C200 P.A. speakers on stands, with a 500 watt HR120 (discontinued, bought it lightly used for about 150 bucks) 92 lb. sub (flat to 19hz). The Alesis has big level control knobs on the front, and I mix things (keyboards, drum machine, recording interface, with the sub through a monitor fader) through a small Mackie mixer. The Alesis is a bullet proof 100 watt workhorse that never fails. You can buy these things for almost nothing…even the later versions with balanced inputs.  Note that the QSC I noticed at Magico was the same model as mine…a GX3 that retails for around 300 bucks or less.
wolf_garcia
6,757 posts
 
QSC amps and other pro power amps can sound great, although I only use 'em for pro audio gigs (don't like amp fans running in quiet listening or recording rooms). Certainly "bang for the buck" applies with this stuff (I use a "little" QSC amp here and there that's only 375 watts or something per side and will blast along at 4 ohms all day), and I'm not going to drag my groovy living room stereo tube amp around in a road case (although I've never hesitated to drag tube guitar amps around for several decades, so there's that). Note I was recently reading an audio magazine and saw a pic from the Magico factory with a QSC power amp sitting there…wonder what they were using it for?…hmmm…If you need a ballsy home theater amp or anything less delicate than audiophile amps, you can run pro amps at a fraction of the cost of precious "high end" gear…you lose some audio geek cred but so what?
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