Crown amp?

[mhardy6647]

What does "plastic" sound like?

I'd be tempted to say not very organic but that'd be way too ironic.
Perhaps silicone would suffer from a non-organic sonic signature.

 

[Isotonic]

Here come the defending little soldiers, armed with ASR dogma...

 

[gene_stl]

Yes, but the XLS amps are Class D, right? The XLI series is Class AB, and consequently heavy and warm in comparison.

Rick "agreeing" Denney

Newer series are class D and similar (ie DriveCore)
There were older series of XLS which I have a stack of which are AB (XLS 602 300 wpc similar various sized amp and more than one series of them)

 

[mhardy6647]

Here come the defending little soldiers, armed with ASR dogma...

This being ASR -- does that not seem strangely apt?

That said, for the record & for what it's worth, I don't really consider myself an "ASR dogmatist".



... or maybe I'm just really bad at it.

 

[gene_stl]

Isotonic , why don't you go back to TrollHattan. They miss you there.

 

[BDWoody]

Here come the defending little soldiers, armed with ASR dogma...

Here comes @Isotonic trolling again...

There goes Isotonic. Buy bye now.

 

[Sal1950]

Here come the defending little soldiers, armed with ASR dogma...

There goes Isotonic. Buy bye now.

Good move BD.
When they refuse to open their minds and learn something here, they just waist our time and space.
Thanks

 

[Tom C]

Just sold my Crown XLS1502. Sounded fine in the garage, but seriously lacking at the gig. Mids were lacking. Overall sound like plastic. Started to be effected by the ASR nonsense and thought that all amps sound the same. Sold it and replaced with with an older QSC class H amp. Sounds much better. Band mates, who have no interest in audio or opinions about power amps noticed the difference right away. The consensus was that the mids lacked slam.

I’m sorry to say it, but no one here agree with you.

 

[Pugsly]

I've always been wondering about crown amps. They look to have mind-boggling power output at a bargain basement price. I've never heard one so my question is; does anyone here own a crown amp and if so, what is your experience with it? The high-end audiophile sites all seem to say the same thing which is that crown amps are "not suitable" for audiophile use because (presumably) they have poor sound quality. I can get a new one at guitar center by my house for about 1k that's rated at (I think) 600wpc. It's pretty ugy and industrial looking. But still 600 watts!!!!!! Less than a thousand $.
I just read Amir's review of the crown XLS2502 and he seems very positive about it.

Hey David,
The use-case and precise model you are considering is important, so the question is, what did you have in mind? After reading quite a bit, I decided to buy a Crown XLS 1002 to power a pair of passive subs that I built. I have no complaints, hear no hiss, have never heard the fan come on, and am sure that these work-horses will last a good long while. According to the meter on the front of the Crown, I have never gotten anywhere near to clipping the amp and am confident that I would blow the tops off of my speakers well before I am able to do so. Since you mention $ as well as watts, I assume that both budget and power are important considerations. Note, however, few of us need or can even use 600 watts. Depending on the sensitivity of our speakers, and keeping in mind that doubling watts only = +3dB, 10x power is required for 10dB, so e.g. 60->600 watts would only be 10dB louder. 10dB, however, is experienced as twice as loud. But, depending on the speakers and their sensitivity and max level, 600 watts could be either deafening, cause very ugly distortion in the speakers, or break the drivers altogether.

In practical terms, the question might be whether one needs more headroom but less than perfect specs like the Crown XLS 1002/1502 or wants ideal specs, but can deal with less power because one does not plan to play obscenely loud and is happy the fact that a new product such as the Topping PA5 obviously has less of a track record of longevity. Both can be had for around $350 but sport very different form-factors and have very different uses. If you want massive power and superlative specs, that will cost much more.

My conclusions regarding sound quality of amplifiers, for what they are worth, and after much reading and consulting with people more knowledgable than myself both here and elsewhere (and keeping in mind that if anyone has evidence to the contrary, I would be glad to hear it!) are:

High-end audiophiles are largely scientifically illiterate. In most instances all amplifiers will sound the same... with important qualifications:
Aczel would say: "any two amplifiers with high input impedance, low output impedance, flat frequency response, and sufficiently low distortion and noise will sound exactly the same at matched levels if not clipped." All of these qualifications need to be kept in mind (and the precise limits of what counts as high, low, flat, sufficient, are not carefully defined by Aczel, but you can see https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-thresholds-of-amp-and-dac-measurements.5734/ regarding some of the thresholds that are relevant.) Some pieces of equipment are not designed to be flat, some will interact with impedance to produce different curves/responses that could produce a more pleasing sound profile, and when clipping the difference between components is provably different - see especially tube amplifiers re all of the above. However, If the above criterion are met, no one has as yet been able to demonstrate that they could hear a difference between two amplifiers in blind tests. In principle, you could be the first, truly golden-eared, super-special person who would be able to achieve this feat, but it would be a very safe gamble to bet against it. For myself, I am entirely certain that I am not super-special, and that the age at which I was able to hear into the 20kHz range is safely behind me.

Not keeping these qualifiers in mind makes it very easy to be fooled, as there can be a clearly audible difference (that however is both measurable and predictable.)
Keeping those qualifiers in mind, moreover, it is always possible that you may be one of those people who finds that certain kinds of distortion pleasing (after all, audio engineers and guitarists often add distortion effects on purpose) or will find that with a particular set of equipment on a particular group of tracks that the sound will be preferable due to such variables 'synergizing' such that the impedance of the transducer and the irregularities of the amplifier will produce a (to you) more pleasing, or even objectively more neutral, result. That said, however, trying to use very expensive pieces of electronic equipment as equalizers/distortion pedals in order to correct for faults or quirks in transducers and/or a range of recordings is foolish from an economical standpoint, and these results can in principle be achieved with far more precision and flexibility using cheap software as well as turned off. One can always add distortion, but it cannot be subtracted once in the audio chain, so using equipment to insert audible distortion that sounds pleasing in a limited number of cases but cannot be removed is, imho counter-productive.

 

[dlaloum]

I have two Crown XLS2500's - which have in the past powered my Gallo 3.2's with very satisfying results (currently sitting waiting a system revamp... temporarily using the AVR built in amps for simplicity during the change over)
I have compared them to an Onkyo and an Integra AVR's (Flagship models with 170W RMS into 8 ohm/2ch), as well as Quad 606

With these specific speakers - the Crown XLS2500 provided the best results

Anthony Gallo used to demo these speakers using Spectron 500W/8ohm) ClassD amps.... until I tried the Crowns I could not see why so much power was needed... (the speakers do go down to 1.6 ohm, and can be a difficult load - resulting in variable results with differing amps)

No I don't run them loud - and I have never heard the fans spin up. - Best value amp I have owned. And with these speakers, best performing amp.

 

[Spkrdctr]

What does "plastic" sound like?

Neither ASR or any other engineer/guru in his right mind ever said "all amps sound the same".
There's about a million if, and, and buts residing behind the answer to the question "do all amps sound the same".
The very short answer to that is, They Should. And that's been true for many decades now.

I'm sure that's what they heard.
Right after you shared your impressions with them.

Sal, you know they probably had the magical technology of MQA involved somewhere and it caused bad interactions with the non-magical equipment. MQA=Magical Quality Audio. It's not science, it's magic!

 

[Spkrdctr]

This being ASR -- does that not seem strangely apt?

That said, for the record & for what it's worth, I don't really consider myself an "ASR dogmatist".



... or maybe I'm just really bad at it.

What is the box with the two fans? I can't tell with my limited knowledge (OK, NO knowledge) of tube equipment. Thanks!

 

[Spkrdctr]

Hey David,
The use-case and precise model you are considering is important, so the question is, what did you have in mind? After reading quite a bit, I decided to buy a Crown XLS 1002 to power a pair of passive subs that I built. I have no complaints, hear no hiss, have never heard the fan come on, and am sure that these work-horses will last a good long while. According to the meter on the front of the Crown, I have never gotten anywhere near to clipping the amp and am confident that I would blow the tops off of my speakers well before I am able to do so. Since you mention $ as well as watts, I assume that both budget and power are important considerations. Note, however, few of us need or can even use 600 watts. Depending on the sensitivity of our speakers, and keeping in mind that doubling watts only = +3dB, 10x power is required for 10dB, so e.g. 60->600 watts would only be 10dB louder. 10dB, however, is experienced as twice as loud. But, depending on the speakers and their sensitivity and max level, 600 watts could be either deafening, cause very ugly distortion in the speakers, or break the drivers altogether.

In practical terms, the question might be whether one needs more headroom but less than perfect specs like the Crown XLS 1002/1502 or wants ideal specs, but can deal with less power because one does not plan to play obscenely loud and is happy the fact that a new product such as the Topping PA5 obviously has less of a track record of longevity. Both can be had for around $350 but sport very different form-factors and have very different uses. If you want massive power and superlative specs, that will cost much more.

My conclusions regarding sound quality of amplifiers, for what they are worth, and after much reading and consulting with people more knowledgable than myself both here and elsewhere (and keeping in mind that if anyone has evidence to the contrary, I would be glad to hear it!) are:

High-end audiophiles are largely scientifically illiterate. In most instances all amplifiers will sound the same... with important qualifications:
Aczel would say: "any two amplifiers with high input impedance, low output impedance, flat frequency response, and sufficiently low distortion and noise will sound exactly the same at matched levels if not clipped." All of these qualifications need to be kept in mind (and the precise limits of what counts as high, low, flat, sufficient, are not carefully defined by Aczel, but you can see https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-thresholds-of-amp-and-dac-measurements.5734/ regarding some of the thresholds that are relevant.) Some pieces of equipment are not designed to be flat, some will interact with impedance to produce different curves/responses that could produce a more pleasing sound profile, and when clipping the difference between components is provably different - see especially tube amplifiers re all of the above. However, If the above criterion are met, no one has as yet been able to demonstrate that they could hear a difference between two amplifiers in blind tests. In principle, you could be the first, truly golden-eared, super-special person who would be able to achieve this feat, but it would be a very safe gamble to bet against it. For myself, I am entirely certain that I am not super-special, and that the age at which I was able to hear into the 20kHz range is safely behind me.

Not keeping these qualifiers in mind makes it very easy to be fooled, as there can be a clearly audible difference (that however is both measurable and predictable.)
Keeping those qualifiers in mind, moreover, it is always possible that you may be one of those people who finds that certain kinds of distortion pleasing (after all, audio engineers and guitarists often add distortion effects on purpose) or will find that with a particular set of equipment on a particular group of tracks that the sound will be preferable due to such variables 'synergizing' such that the impedance of the transducer and the irregularities of the amplifier will produce a (to you) more pleasing, or even objectively more neutral, result. That said, however, trying to use very expensive pieces of electronic equipment as equalizers/distortion pedals in order to correct for faults or quirks in transducers and/or a range of recordings is foolish from an economical standpoint, and these results can in principle be achieved with far more precision and flexibility using cheap software as well as turned off. One can always add distortion, but it cannot be subtracted once in the audio chain, so using equipment to insert audible distortion that sounds pleasing in a limited number of cases but cannot be removed is, imho counter-productive.

I have a crown amp and it sounds fantastic. It has way more power than I will ever use. I probably use up to MAX 20 watts at 4 ohms. So, the fan has never turned on and never will. When no music is playing, I have dead silence from my speakers, no hiss at all. That is from about 6 inches from the speaker. 6 year warranty on the entire amp. What is there not to like? In private testing I used my Martin Logan ESL speakers and cranked it up. I got to probably 95db or so and it was LOUD! the first light came on, on the front panel. I had never seen it come on before. I thought "Oh no, it is probably the clipping light". I then looked closely and saw it was the first time I had enough signal going to the amp it was the light verifying that it had an incoming signal! It didn't even come on steady, during a loud bass sound it would come on and then go out again. All that to say I am barely using the power available. I have the Class A/B version (30 pounds!) XLi I think? The non-DSP version 1500 or 1502 I forget. Brand new manufactured one year ago. Gobs of nice clean power with an awesome price.

 

[mhardy6647]

What is the box with the two fans? I can't tell with my limited knowledge (OK, NO knowledge) of tube equipment. Thanks!

No tubes, just lots of heat.

It's a very individual implementation of Nelson Pass' infamous (around these parts, at any rate) class A solid state Pass Amp Camp Amp, built by a Polk forum member (known there as "ALL212") some years back. He's a Bottlehead fan, so he built his ACA as a stereo amp "compliant with" the Bottlehead form factor. He used active cooling (adapted from Intel CPU heatsinks topped with muffin fans), boutique-ish passive components, and powers it with a pair of surplus Dell laptop power supplies. It's a unique ACA build, and not out of whack thematically with the (older) Bottlehead components already here.

Nelson Pass Amp Camp Amp (Dual Mono) Custom built

For sale. This is my version of dual mono Nelson Pass Amp Camp Amps. $350 if you pick it up.

forum.polkaudio.com

I should mention that this was the extremely generous gift to me from another, phenomenally kind & thoughtful Polk forum member. Kind of a convoluted story, but suffice it to say it was donated to the betterment of the collection here. I view it as belonging to the Polk forums, in full and candid disclosure.

On topic -- it's pretty much the polar opposite of the titular Crown amp(s) of this thread -- at least along the solid state axis.

Sorry for the digression!

 

[Spkrdctr]

No tubes, just lots of heat.

It's a very individual implementation of Nelson Pass' infamous (around these parts, at any rate) class A solid state Pass Amp Camp Amp, built by a Polk forum member (known there as "ALL212") some years back. He's a Bottlehead fan, so he built his ACA as a stereo amp "compliant with" the Bottlehead form factor. He used active cooling (adapted from Intel CPU heatsinks topped with muffin fans), boutique-ish passive components, and powers it with a pair of surplus Dell laptop power supplies. It's a unique ACA build, and not out of whack thematically with the (older) Bottlehead components already here.

Nelson Pass Amp Camp Amp (Dual Mono) Custom built

For sale. This is my version of dual mono Nelson Pass Amp Camp Amps. $350 if you pick it up.

forum.polkaudio.com

I should mention that this was the extremely generous gift to me from another, phenomenally kind & thoughtful Polk forum member. Kind of a convoluted story, but suffice it to say it was donated to the betterment of the collection here. I view it as belonging to the Polk forums, in full and candid disclosure.

On topic -- it's pretty much the polar opposite of the titular Crown amp(s) of this thread -- at least along the solid state axis.

Sorry for the digression!

Very interesting!

 

[Wolf]

He should have used a PowerCon connector for power. Using a SpeakOn is a bad idea there.

 

[mhardy6647]

He should have used a PowerCon connector for power. Using a SpeakOn is a bad idea there.

Say more.
Current capacity?

 

[gene_stl]

I think he means there is potential for plugging in, an AC energized SpeakOn somewhere where it doesn't belong.

I am no fan of Nelson Pass but I have always wanted to use some of those computer cpu heatsinks for something kewl , either in audio or to cool an image or spectroscopic sensor. Maybe with some active Peltier effect cooling.

 

[Wolf]

I think he means there is potential for plugging in, an AC energized SpeakOn somewhere where it doesn't belong.

I am no fan of Nelson Pass but I have always wanted to use some of those computer cpu heatsinks for something kewl , either in audio or to cool an image or spectroscopic sensor. Maybe with some active Peltier effect cooling.

Yes, your meaning is concise and accurate. SpeakOns are not for household AC or rectified DC. They are meant for speaker connections. PowerCon connections are for AC power, and keyed for that application only.

 

[gene_stl]

Agreed!