Pro Amps I.e. Crown, Qsc

[axess]

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?

[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

[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

[mac]

You can read almost 2,700 posts on pro amps for home use here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=418666

I have 2 Crowns (XLS 402 and 202) and 2 Carver digital tripath amps powering my HT and am very happy with the quality of sound. I and several others in that thread did A-B comparisons with several high end "audiophile" amps and stuck with the pros. For the money you can't beat 'em, IMHO.

I put a 10 watt 100 ohm resistor in line with the fan circuit and it really quieted them down.

[BRANDONH]

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?

I have the QSC SRA 3622 (Studio Reference Amplifier).
It has RCA inputs. (rare for pro sound)
Ultra quiet fan!!
Not ugly.
Massive power.
Very clean sound.
http://www.audiorex.com/finalitem_1....67&intCTabID=2

You will be amazed with the power and happy with the sound.

[GMichael]

I have the QSC SRA 3622 (Studio Reference Amplifier).
It has RCA inputs. (rare for pro sound)
Ultra quiet fan!!
Not ugly.
Massive power.
Very clean sound.
http://www.audiorex.com/finalitem_1....67&intCTabID=2

You will be amazed with the power and happy with the sound.

Nice amp!

[nightflier]

Very nice indeed. Now where else are you going to find a 1100W amp with 0.05% THD? A friend of mine is about to spend $2500 on a stereo amp. I can't wait to tell him about this one.

Now, the real question: how does the consumer market get away with charging at least twice as much for all their amps? I'm starting to feel a little jilted myself for all the amps I've bought (and sold) over the last decade...

[E-Stat]

Now, the real question: how does the consumer market get away with charging at least twice as much for all their amps?

I owned a Crown amp long ago. Reliable and powerful, but not in the same league sonically as the Threshold that followed it. The power supplies are typically much smaller on pro amps. My CDP weighs more than the QSC amp.

rw

[pelly3s]

most modern pro amps use a switching power supply thats why they are getting so light and seem to have a small power supply. I am yet to see too many home amps that have a supply as big as a Macro Tech 10000 (any amp with two power cords is cool), or even that a 5000 oh and lets not forget about the huge supply in the QSC RMX 5050. I do miss the days of my Macro Techs but I managed to get more power and lost about 300 pounds off my racks by going with Itech's.

those QSC studio reference amps are great. Its a close call between those and the crown reference series on which one i like more. the QSC does look a lot cooler

[mixadude]

These and other reasons are why I haven't been too gung ho on hifi gear of late (the last 30 years). I use the big big stuff for real audio. Don't care much about an iota here and there, a huge flagship AVR pretty much foots the bill for my home system. When I do real audio, I use truck fulls of heavyweight stuff.

All that being said, I do appreciate the schooling I'm getting here in this arena... thanks one and all

[kexodusc]

I owned a Crown amp long ago. Reliable and powerful, but not in the same league sonically as the Threshold that followed it. The power supplies are typically much smaller on pro amps. My CDP weighs more than the QSC amp.

rw

Different ball game quite often though...power supply size by itself is no longer a good measure of an amplifier's ability. Even for home audio amplifiers. Unless they are the exact same topology. Even then, there's differences in PSU's too. Chasis, fins, the use of fans, etc. all contribute to weight as well. A/V receivers still go cheap quite often, but even $300 receivers have seen credible, real power increases in recent years, ability handle lower impedances a bit better, while significantly reducing size and weight of PSU's.

There's little doubt in my mind that many of the established amplifier manufacturers keep using old school, heavy, less efficient designs simply because a great portion of the target market uses weight as a quick evaluation measure. They can be cheaper to produce too.

[E-Stat]

I am yet to see too many home amps that have a supply as big as a Macro Tech 10000 (any amp with two power cords is cool), or even that a 5000 oh and lets not forget about the huge supply in the QSC RMX 5050. I do miss the days of my Macro Techs but I managed to get more power and lost about 300 pounds off my racks by going with Itech's

What is the capacity of either amp in joules?

rw

[kexodusc]

What is the capacity of either amp in joules?

rw

Curious, I can't figure out where you're going with this question...but I'd love to know.

[pelly3s]

im in the same boat.

i would love to see any hifi amp come close to the power and current of the MA-10000. The thing was used to power MRI machines. Its completely stable all day long at .5 ohms

[E-Stat]

Curious, I can't figure out where you're going with this question...but I'd love to know.

That would be quantifying the notion of "huge supply". As a point of reference, my mono amps store 250 joules each.

rw

[kexodusc]

That would be quantifying the notion of "huge supply". As a point of reference, my mono amps store 250 joules each.

rw

I'm missing something here, been a few years since my last physics class. But the relevant unit of application (power) is still watts, no? Regardless of joules.
With a unit of time introduced, wouldn't the number of joules and watts be the same anyway? Ie: 1 joule = 1 watt-sec?

(as I said, I'm very curious were you're going with this)