Pro Amps I.e. Crown, Qsc

[pelly3s]

i have said it time and time again and i wont stop, the crown K1 and K2 is a highly reguarded amp in studio use. Now if its good enough to make the music and movies we love why isnt it good enough to use at home. I wouldnt waste money on companies like Pyle. The Crown Reference series amps are great too. Another amp company a lot of people over look is AB but for years 100s of large studios used them too. You could always break the bank and go with something like a Pass Labs but is it really worth it, to me not at all. I would take the K2 over almost any other amp on the market. there is a mod to bypass the sleep mode on it too

http://www.crownaudio.com/amp_htm/kspecs.htm

http://www.stereotimes.com/amp031302.shtm

[kexodusc]

My observations from my own limited experience is that Crown and QSC make excellent stuff that sounds as good or better than a lot of home audio gear for significantly cheaper. Stay away from Pyle.
A lot of people with more technical knowledge than myself have been persuading me to give pro-amps a shot my next time around, so I've been demoing a few systems over the past few months. I've even personally a/b tested my favorite Bryston gear agains some equally powerful Crown and QSC stuff. I wouldn't say they sounded better than the 4B, but damn they were close enough impress the hell out of me. A good "first impression" indeed.. A lot cheaper. Perhaps both were slightly brighter. I have to admit I'm leaning towards the pro-amp route for my future upgrades..

The bad news is they are usually ugly, have fans that make noise, as and some models have the beefy power supply hum. They can run hot, and that fan can be annoying unless you love loud music that'll drown it out. For a lot of high-sensitivity speakers, the benefit of the extra power in pro-amps is somewhat lost because you might not take advantage of it as much. In this case, a good home-audio amp might very well be the more pragmatic option - no fans ( or at least they're more quiet) , better looks, etc.

Good clean power, is good clean power. More is better, but there are diminishing returns. I don't subscribe the magic fairy dust theory that some high-end super expensive amps have such finer grade components that affect the sound quality. I believe the components are better, but that diminishing returns are inhibiting performance gains.

This combined with the fact that the pro-audio market is much, much larger than the high-end home audio market (and I'm losely defining that as the separate components market) provides better economies of scale - that is the ability to produce more, for much lower cost. There's also much more competition...less audiophile mark-up. A consumer's dream really. Pro-amps can offer great value and performance for in-home use.

Just one man's opinion. A few years back I'd have said now way, pro-gear isn't as refined or is too analytical or some such garbage, but I based my opinion on the crappy Pyle, Behringer, or Peavey stuff I had heard. And I don't own any pro-gear right now, I'm not being a fanboy, just being honest.

[axess]

thanks for the feedback