Quote Originally Posted by pelly3s
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.