Pro Amps I.e. Crown, Qsc

[FLZapped]

Has anyone had experience using Pro Amps from compaines like Crown, QSC, Pyle, etc. for home theater mains. They seem to provide good power for the money, but what is the down side?

As another mentioned, fans.....

If you look into several models of Crown (I have experience with these), they dispense with a finned heatsink for a flat plate which they force air over to reduce weight. In the pro market, portability is more important than the noise a fan might make at the FOH position. The K-Series is the exception.

-Bruce

[pelly3s]

just think about it, fan or not once you get it loud enough you'll never hear the fan lol.

[mixadude]

I have a pair of QSC PL 1.8s that I ran my hifi on for a while. Too noisey on the fans, but sounded great. Another reason I went the huge receiver route instead of separates... I'm tired of robbing my amps from the hifi to do a gig

[nightflier]

just think about it, fan or not once you get it loud enough you'll never hear the fan lol.

There are a few units out there (forgot which ones) that have variable fan speeds based on temperature. So theoritically, the fans will get loud only when you turn up the volume. Alternately you could buy several lower-powered low-profile amps for each speaker to keep the temperature down. Also, if you're inclined to do this, you can install your own fan speed dial (a friend of mine did that in his studio), but that sounds a bit risky, I know. (Maybe you could try this on a used Pyle amp ;-)

I set up an 8 speaker gym a while back and got to play around with the Crown amp (I think it was an XLS series, around $600) and compare it with my HT amps. While it certainly didn't sound as clean as my PS Audio, B&K, or Adcom amps, it was pretty close. At moderately loud volumes, the fan was too loud to enjoy classical music, but it also didn't have a temperature-controlled fan, which is what I would recommend.

I should also add that Crown amps have a tremendous amount of raw power in comparison. If you're going to compare them watts/$, with a little less attention to sound quality, then a Crown amp is a much better value. Also, if you're going to be hiding that amp in a back closet and power multiple speakers (like off a speaker selector switch), then it would be perfect. Amps like the Crowns are designed to go down to 2 ohms or lower and I don't know of any HT amps that can do that at the same price-point.

Also, I've heard a lot of bad stuff about the Pyle amps, but the sales rep at Guitar Center said that they have made quite a few changes at the company and expects them to build better units in the future. Then again, maybe he was just trying to sell me one of the new Pyle amps. Anyhow, they are a bit cheaper too because of the bad rap, although I don't think I would recommend bying a used one of these.

[pelly3s]

Pyle = bad no matter what happens to the company. In my situation at home I tend to use a lot of pro amps but all convection cooled, solves the fan noise. When critical listening is not really called for sometimes the big toys will come out and make a lot of noise.

nightfier - if you get a chance get your hands on a K2 and play with it, or some of the Stewart amps. Hell I personally even love the old JBL 62xx series stuff like my 6230 its got a lot of heart

[nightflier]

Pyle = bad no matter what happens to the company. In my situation at home I tend to use a lot of pro amps but all convection cooled, solves the fan noise. When critical listening is not really called for sometimes the big toys will come out and make a lot of noise.

nightfier - if you get a chance get your hands on a K2 and play with it, or some of the Stewart amps. Hell I personally even love the old JBL 62xx series stuff like my 6230 its got a lot of heart

Pelly, what are some convection cooled amp models out there? Is the K2 one of these? Also, isn't that risky when dipping down to under 2 ohms?

Also, not to get too far off topic, but Guitar Center was selling a $100 tube preamp. Now it may not sound ideal (I only heard it in the store - sounded fine, but there was a lot of other noise in the store), but there isn't a tube amp available for less than 5 times as much in the home consumer market...

[pelly3s]

I dont know about the tube pre. The only tube pre I own is an old Mcgown from like 1967 it has made some nice recordings.

the k2 is convection cooled, the stewart world series is too, the old jbl 6230 and 6260 is.... im sure there are many more out there but tonight i cant think of too many. one too many shots makes it hard to think. Ive run k2's at 2 ohms with dips around 1 ohm with no problem, some like it some dont. i know its not convection cooled but crowns new itech amps have been proven to run for a while at around a 1/4 ohm before they flip out. i have run my stewart world 600's at 2 ohms and they loved it, gave me a ton of power, granted they got warm but what amp wouldnt get warm driving 2 ohms almost at full clip for 3 and a half hours.

[pelly3s]

one more thing that ive said time and time again if pro gear is good enough to record the music we love then it should be good enough to play it back. everyone makes a big deal about all these fancy cd players and everything but you cant really get better than the source it was recorded on. i mean some of my favorite recordings were on a 5 channel altec tube mixer straight to tape and then recently remastered onto cd, and my favorite thing to listen to them on is a pair of jbl studio monitors or altec VOTT's because they are fairly flat and bring the recording to life