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The Sound of Crown?

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Posted on May 16, 2016 at 11:11:58
George S. Roland
Audiophile

Posts: 1464
Location: N W Pennsylvania
Joined: March 20, 2004
I recently helped a friend dispose of her deceased husband's audio equipment among which were several Crown power amps. I am now kicking myself for not bringin them home for a day or two and listening to them. The enormous transformers they contained were certainly impressive in size and weight.

I am only interested in the highest-powered transistor units Crown made. How do these compare with contemporary solid state power amps in sound quality?

Many thanks,

George

 

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Old ones sucked, posted on May 16, 2016 at 11:25:17
E-Stat
Audiophile

Posts: 37464
Joined: May 12, 2000
Contributor
  Since:
April 5, 2002
as they used first generation Fairchild op amps and used boatloads of corrective feedback. Great for subwoofer use but exhibited a hard, closed in top end.

They are however, incredibly reliable. I owned a D-150 in my teenage years and once inadvertently shorted the outputs with a screwdriver while it was powered up. It lightly fused the screwdriver to a terminal and shut down. I powered it off, yanked the screwdriver off and powered it back up.

No problemo!

 

RE: The Sound of Crown?, posted on May 16, 2016 at 12:16:28
Utley1
Audiophile

Posts: 1609
Location: NYC
Joined: July 30, 2010
The SL2 preamp was an excellent Product in its time.(Matched up well against SAE and even the Marantz units at twice the price. I still use mine from time to time and it is very dynamic. Mine still sounds fine after 35 years. The amps in that series were much better than the D150.....Those were the last products they made before closing and going to D amps. (The firm then was known for their anti-semitic views(1980), at least from the point of dealers. I know a couple of companies who rebuild them.

 

RE: The Sound of Crown?, posted on May 16, 2016 at 12:26:30
Awe-d-o-file
Dealer

Posts: 21037
Location: 50 miles west of DC
Joined: January 10, 2004
They were reliable and well built but didnt sound very good. You didnt miss anything. Good SS stuff today is much better. There is and always will be crap.I have a similar story th E stat about shorting the terminals of a DC-300 without any damage.

ET
ET

"If at first you don't succeed, keep on sucking till you do suck seed" - Curly Howard 1936

 

Different experience, posted on May 16, 2016 at 13:19:24
G Squared
Audiophile

Posts: 8435
Location: Washington, DC Metro Area
Joined: November 16, 2004
Contributor
  Since:
May 23, 2023
I have a DC 300A that was rehabbed by Crown in the mid 90s. It has been a reliable and good sounding amp. It drove my Maggie SMGa set up really well back my parents basement.It can be bright in the wrong system like many amps. The amp has incredible current delivery capacity and almost never feel short on drive at any reasonable level.

I recently used it as a back up while my Cary amp was down for repair and it served me well after many years of storage.
Gsquared

 

Haven't heard it, but the Crown Macro Reference was heavily reviewed at Stereophile years back..., posted on May 16, 2016 at 14:41:40
David S.
Audiophile

Posts: 3552
Location: Mountains of WNC
Joined: August 31, 2000
In case you hadn't looked...

 

Thanks to responders, posted on May 17, 2016 at 10:43:19
George S. Roland
Audiophile

Posts: 1464
Location: N W Pennsylvania
Joined: March 20, 2004
This information is very useful to me as it confirms what I expected. I am driving a pair of B&W Matrix 801 Series IIs, so I do not need anything that over-emphasizes the high end, sounds at all dry or etched there.

Still thinking about Rowland Model 5, Mark Levinson 431 or 431, Classe CA 2200 and something from Pass, used of course!

Advice much appreciated!

George

 

The Sound of Crown. The reputation is not audiophile good, More nitwit: great power, big.. ooh! yeah .nt, posted on May 18, 2016 at 09:11:44
.

 

RE: Ja'ever own one?, posted on May 18, 2016 at 12:42:07
mr.bear
Audiophile

Posts: 4167
Joined: November 13, 2001
I suspect no... I have a big newer Crown CTs 600 (that in the interest of full disclosure, is now for sale as I no longer need it) set up with the mono input panel. These beasts are very powerful and "fast" driving subwoofers and seem to never run out of oomph. There is some sort of dynamic level control that senses when the output stage is getting too close to its safe operating envelope and attenuates the input, but I never sensed any weirdness in the dynamics from that. Would I want one set up for stereo to drive my Thiels? Probably not, I never used it that way. Is it a poor-mans Krell? I don't think so. I do know that used within its capabilities it delivers humongous power for reasonable prices. [Isn't that "to wit:" Socks!]

 

RE: The Sound of Crown?, posted on May 19, 2016 at 14:56:38
MannyE
Audiophile

Posts: 2088
Location: Miami Beach
Joined: March 4, 2001
I'm going to sing the praises of the D-75 two channel rack mount amp.

This unassuming little guy sounds great. I am going to use a few of them to tri-amp a pair of DIY full range towers. I suspect they will sound fantastic. They are also bridgable to monoblocks if you need more power.

Only a nitwit would discard these out of hand without hearing them.

NOTE: The Chinese-made D75-A is not the same animal as the American made D-75.

 

RE: Ja'ever own one?, posted on May 20, 2016 at 14:46:30
"These beasts are very powerful and "fast" driving subwoofers"

It ain't hard to be "fast" when you're talking about the longest waveforms in the audio spectrum.

:)

 

The DC300A..., posted on May 20, 2016 at 14:56:24
would produce the most gawdawful low frequency farting sound at certain venues. "Excuuuuse me" comes to mind. I still don't know why they did that. Fortunately, it only happened in certain venues, and it would go away after they'd warmed up - it never happened during performance. That woulda sucked.

:)

 

RE: Fast, in a particular sense, posted on May 21, 2016 at 09:43:02
mr.bear
Audiophile

Posts: 4167
Joined: November 13, 2001
I guess what I mean is the amp has good control of the woofer cone movement. I associate that with hefty current delivery. I'm not sure you can hear an absolute correlation between damping factor and good subwoofing, but the two must go hand-in-hand.

A sub is much more like an electric motor than a violin, I agree. But a woofer that is not well-controlled sounds like beating on a cardboard box, rather than a kettle-drum. That's fast" to me ;-)

 

RE: The Sound of Crown?, posted on May 22, 2016 at 12:46:57
A.Wayne
Audiophile

Posts: 2527
Location: Front row center
Joined: November 30, 2011
I have owned alot of crowns over the years, sold all of them eventually. Reliable and well built but could never get pass the woody bass and hard sound. The less expensive by a mile ABElectronics had better sounding pro amps and the Crest and QSC had better drive if using for Bass. In the late 70's/ 80's i started using Bryston 4B 's for studio's but preferred the Audire forte amplifiers for my personal use ( much better on ESL's than the 4B for sonics) , the crowns were never my cup of tea ...

The crowns are highly rated thou :)

 

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