This is a review and detailed measurements of the Crown DCI 4 | 300N four channel DSP and networked professional amplifier. It was kindly purchased (used) and sent to me for testing and costs US $3,511.
There is only a power on/off on the front. I wish there was a processing bypass as well. The full capability is visible on the back:
I wouldn't be able to scratch the surfaces of all that this amplifier can do. Suffice it to say you can do full processing (speaker and to some extent room EQ), environment/remote control, and transmission of digital audio over Ethernet type cabling. Configuration is available using Audio Architect software. Typical of these Pro applications, it takes a bit of effort to get used to its operation but after that, it seemed easy enough to use.
A rather loud fan turns on during power on testing and then goes off. Alas, during my testing it came back on. Unless the amplifier is way away from your listening spot, better plan to put it in another room/dedicate closet.
Connections are all through screw terminals. Not so bad for speakers but for balanced/unbalanced input, you are going to need to have bare wires (upper right phoenix terminals). Not the end of the world but don't expect to buy and power on the same day if you don't have these bits.
I was disappointed with the trim controls in the back. They are very coarse and hard to adjust to an exact value. And being on the rear makes it harder to manipulate. For its intended application of professional installation is not a big deal but for one-off testing/use, is more work.
I chose to test channels 3 & 4 as my standard setup is stereo. During use, the amplifier case did not rise above ambient but again, the fan was running the whole time.
Note: our company, Madrona Digital is a dealer for Harman and we move probably more Crown amplifier than any system integrated on the west coast. So feel free to read bias into my subjective remarks.
Crown 4|300N Amplifier Measurements
Upon power on, output noise+distortion was quite stable which is nice:
So on to our 1 kHz dashboard @ 5 watts into 4 ohm load:
I must say, I expected much worse performance! Distortion is below -100 dB and SINAD as a result, is dominated by noise. As is, performance is a bit above average of many amplifiers tested to date:
As noted, noise floor is somewhat high causing SNR at 5 watt to be below desirable level (90+ dB):
Using default settings (which is how I conducted all of these tests), this is our frequency response:
I was surprised to see the response not being flatter at 4 ohm. Still, we are talking about less than 0.5 dB. Importantly, there is slight change with load change to 8 ohm, indicating small amount of load dependency (which you could correct using DSP subsystem).
Multitone yet again displays the low levels of distortion:
Crosstalk is better than most amplifiers I measure:
We have healthy amount of power into 4 ohm:
And get even more when we allow 1% THD+N:
Switching to 8 ohm load, we naturally get less but there is still good bit of power on tap:
I was disappointed to see distortion rise though above 1 kHz as power increased:
On the positive front, there is not much impact at 20 Hz so you can comfortably use the amp to power subs and such.
Finally, turn on and off behavior is very good:
Do notice the long time to turn on though (nearly 20 seconds).
Conclusions
Nice to see that as we go up in price performance of a pro amplifier improves as well. No, it is not state of the art but this combination of four channels with sophisticated DSP and audio streaming is not easy to find in consumer domain.
I am going to put Crown 4 | 300N amplifier on my recommended list.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
There is only a power on/off on the front. I wish there was a processing bypass as well. The full capability is visible on the back:
I wouldn't be able to scratch the surfaces of all that this amplifier can do. Suffice it to say you can do full processing (speaker and to some extent room EQ), environment/remote control, and transmission of digital audio over Ethernet type cabling. Configuration is available using Audio Architect software. Typical of these Pro applications, it takes a bit of effort to get used to its operation but after that, it seemed easy enough to use.
A rather loud fan turns on during power on testing and then goes off. Alas, during my testing it came back on. Unless the amplifier is way away from your listening spot, better plan to put it in another room/dedicate closet.
Connections are all through screw terminals. Not so bad for speakers but for balanced/unbalanced input, you are going to need to have bare wires (upper right phoenix terminals). Not the end of the world but don't expect to buy and power on the same day if you don't have these bits.
I was disappointed with the trim controls in the back. They are very coarse and hard to adjust to an exact value. And being on the rear makes it harder to manipulate. For its intended application of professional installation is not a big deal but for one-off testing/use, is more work.
I chose to test channels 3 & 4 as my standard setup is stereo. During use, the amplifier case did not rise above ambient but again, the fan was running the whole time.
Note: our company, Madrona Digital is a dealer for Harman and we move probably more Crown amplifier than any system integrated on the west coast. So feel free to read bias into my subjective remarks.
Crown 4|300N Amplifier Measurements
Upon power on, output noise+distortion was quite stable which is nice:
So on to our 1 kHz dashboard @ 5 watts into 4 ohm load:
I must say, I expected much worse performance! Distortion is below -100 dB and SINAD as a result, is dominated by noise. As is, performance is a bit above average of many amplifiers tested to date:
As noted, noise floor is somewhat high causing SNR at 5 watt to be below desirable level (90+ dB):
Using default settings (which is how I conducted all of these tests), this is our frequency response:
I was surprised to see the response not being flatter at 4 ohm. Still, we are talking about less than 0.5 dB. Importantly, there is slight change with load change to 8 ohm, indicating small amount of load dependency (which you could correct using DSP subsystem).
Multitone yet again displays the low levels of distortion:
Crosstalk is better than most amplifiers I measure:
We have healthy amount of power into 4 ohm:
And get even more when we allow 1% THD+N:
Switching to 8 ohm load, we naturally get less but there is still good bit of power on tap:
I was disappointed to see distortion rise though above 1 kHz as power increased:
On the positive front, there is not much impact at 20 Hz so you can comfortably use the amp to power subs and such.
Finally, turn on and off behavior is very good:
Do notice the long time to turn on though (nearly 20 seconds).
Conclusions
Nice to see that as we go up in price performance of a pro amplifier improves as well. No, it is not state of the art but this combination of four channels with sophisticated DSP and audio streaming is not easy to find in consumer domain.
I am going to put Crown 4 | 300N amplifier on my recommended list.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/