I don't see anyone on here using Carver or Crown power amps. Are they junk.... only high power, but not good sonic quality?
DLStryker
DLStryker
There are some dedicated Carver fans here or there. crown amps are mostly for PA use save for the DC150/300 series which have there following but...there are many amps that are sonically better. but its a matter of taste i guess....some people like Bose too....
This is mainly a DIY site, and not many want to copy Crown or Carver.
The Carver M1.0T (non inverting version) is very good for hi-fi or PA. You would have quite a time getting a proper transformer for it though. I would use two toroids and forget the magnetic field thing.
The Carver M1.0T (non inverting version) is very good for hi-fi or PA. You would have quite a time getting a proper transformer for it though. I would use two toroids and forget the magnetic field thing.
Crown is good for me
On an electronics point of view I have seen the schematics of Crowns 602, 402, 202 and the are absolutely conventional well built and similar to many renomated DIY ones. The only particular is the triple stage CFP, that many "experts" here would consider absolutely unreliable and not suitable for a series production. Then about the sound, well, I haven't listened at them (I'd love to do it) , but I do not belong to the golden hears brigade so my opinion is useless.
effebi
On an electronics point of view I have seen the schematics of Crowns 602, 402, 202 and the are absolutely conventional well built and similar to many renomated DIY ones. The only particular is the triple stage CFP, that many "experts" here would consider absolutely unreliable and not suitable for a series production. Then about the sound, well, I haven't listened at them (I'd love to do it) , but I do not belong to the golden hears brigade so my opinion is useless.
effebi
Found diyaudio when looking for an opinion on a Carver 1.5T for sale on craigslist. Lots of noise on the internet about turnon-turnoff whump. Decided not to buy it. Reworked my dynaco ST120 with Djoffe's bias mod, much more diy. And the ST120 never whumped turning on or off, and still doesn't. Some Crown models have nice speaker and output transistor protection circuits involving microprocessors that have shown up as examples of how to do it on the protection threads. Other crowns are naked against failure. Some models of crown have shown up on the most difficult amp to repair thread.
Somebody likes Crown amps:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/solid-state/86650-resurrecting-crown-dc300a-41.html#post1073885
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/solid-state/86650-resurrecting-crown-dc300a-41.html#post1073885
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In a recording studio, we had a pair of AE-1 monitors, simple bass reflex enclosures with a 8" SEAS poluprop midbass and SEAS alu-dome, relly nice speakers.
We ran them on a decent SONY integrated amplifier, can't remember which model, but not the cheapest model and more than large enough to power the AE-1's
Then we were lent a Crown studio reference amp (can't remember if it was the I or II) by a pro-audio vendor.
My first thought was "what do we need that beast for, TIG welding?"
We hooked it up, and boy did it make a difference! The sound was much tighter and better resolved.
I can't speak for the other Crown models, but that studio reference sure earned it's name!
We ran them on a decent SONY integrated amplifier, can't remember which model, but not the cheapest model and more than large enough to power the AE-1's
Then we were lent a Crown studio reference amp (can't remember if it was the I or II) by a pro-audio vendor.
My first thought was "what do we need that beast for, TIG welding?"
We hooked it up, and boy did it make a difference! The sound was much tighter and better resolved.
I can't speak for the other Crown models, but that studio reference sure earned it's name!
Hi
I do have some Carver pre and power amps.
The pre amps are very well built but often use the old 4173 op amps. These are slow and very poor slew rate. Later pre amps like the C2 used 5532 op amps and can be updated easily. However the 4000 pre amps have a multitude of interesting facilities and if you replace the op amps can be fun to use.
The early power amps are quasi complementary bjt designs with conventional power supplies. All later power amps use power supplies with a triac to chop up the sign wave and get the maximum possible from the transformer. It gets a lot of power from a small package but leaves no spare power for transients and it does cause a lot of high frequency interference.
Don
I do have some Carver pre and power amps.
The pre amps are very well built but often use the old 4173 op amps. These are slow and very poor slew rate. Later pre amps like the C2 used 5532 op amps and can be updated easily. However the 4000 pre amps have a multitude of interesting facilities and if you replace the op amps can be fun to use.
The early power amps are quasi complementary bjt designs with conventional power supplies. All later power amps use power supplies with a triac to chop up the sign wave and get the maximum possible from the transformer. It gets a lot of power from a small package but leaves no spare power for transients and it does cause a lot of high frequency interference.
Don
Those 2 Crowns were some of the worst amps i've ever heard. The 1st Carver Cube was a joke... newer ones are purported to be much better.
dave
I have a high regard for Bob Carver, but the couple preamps I worked on were difficult to service and IMHO not built very well. No idea on his power amps.
I've had a couple old Crown preamps (IC150A) and they were built like tanks, but sonically not the greatest. I think their power amps are better. The industrial division of Crown is Techron, and their stuff is definitely worth a look.
I've had a couple old Crown preamps (IC150A) and they were built like tanks, but sonically not the greatest. I think their power amps are better. The industrial division of Crown is Techron, and their stuff is definitely worth a look.
Crown built its reputation on solid, reliable big power (25 years ago). Some of the first over 400 watt amps that didnt burn up when actually putting out full power for a long time. This is what made them popular PA amps but some recording studios also used them. They sounded decent but thats not why people bought them. Dont know what the new ones are like.
I have a Carver "magnetic field" reciever. It sounds pretty good and it has an incredible amount of circuitry in it. I like how the transformer is cased in an RF eliminating shell. I give it a B-.
Crown Amcron amps used so far
Dear readers of this thread,
Let me tell you my experiences with Crown amplifiers. It started about 28 years ago when i became a rodey with a band in Holland. In their amp rack was a Crown DC300A. The way it is build was impressive to me. And with a load of 2 Altec A7 speakers per channel it was performing very well. I started to mess around with amps and speakers and the old DC300 was outperforming a lot of other brands like Phase Linear, Bose, M&M, Peavey, Yamaha (although i had a good experience with the PM1200, nice looking!) and more of those old amps. The Crown was alway's good in the low section. Unbreakable and a lot of push. I later bought one for myself. I still remember transported the little beast on my bike. I used it for years at home and in PA systems. I think a lot of readers get a "relationship" with a certain type of amp and the DC was my buddy. I remember demonstrating to a friend that you could run a vacuum cleaner on the amp and regulate the motor with the volume knob...
One time we did a gig with an American band and we used a strange mixing console for the monitor and my DC300 connected to it. The guitarist came to me and said through his long hairs to me " Hey dude, the is coming smoke out of your monitors.." S#@$ He was right. It was a DC offset problem coming out of the mixer and blew some K140 speakers. Yes, the old DC can produce DC, Straight from 0 Hz.. But on the amp side no problems!
I could write a book with more adventures but that is not what this forum is for. But if readers are interested... Who knows! LOL
Conclusion: For PA use: great! As Subwoofer amp: Great! For home hifi, not any more. To grainy and flat. The new ones sound good and Crown is using new technology as all the other brands. But High end amps are better in this respect.
Crown these days for me: I still own 2 Delta Omega DO2000 amps, in working condition but to heavy for on the road. One Geodyne II as monitor amp.
In my PA i switched to Dynacord/Electrovoice. But Crown is never out of sight!
I sold my old DC300 years ago. But if i can get my hands on a DC300A series II... 😀
Regards,
Courtec.
Dear readers of this thread,
Let me tell you my experiences with Crown amplifiers. It started about 28 years ago when i became a rodey with a band in Holland. In their amp rack was a Crown DC300A. The way it is build was impressive to me. And with a load of 2 Altec A7 speakers per channel it was performing very well. I started to mess around with amps and speakers and the old DC300 was outperforming a lot of other brands like Phase Linear, Bose, M&M, Peavey, Yamaha (although i had a good experience with the PM1200, nice looking!) and more of those old amps. The Crown was alway's good in the low section. Unbreakable and a lot of push. I later bought one for myself. I still remember transported the little beast on my bike. I used it for years at home and in PA systems. I think a lot of readers get a "relationship" with a certain type of amp and the DC was my buddy. I remember demonstrating to a friend that you could run a vacuum cleaner on the amp and regulate the motor with the volume knob...
One time we did a gig with an American band and we used a strange mixing console for the monitor and my DC300 connected to it. The guitarist came to me and said through his long hairs to me " Hey dude, the is coming smoke out of your monitors.." S#@$ He was right. It was a DC offset problem coming out of the mixer and blew some K140 speakers. Yes, the old DC can produce DC, Straight from 0 Hz.. But on the amp side no problems!
I could write a book with more adventures but that is not what this forum is for. But if readers are interested... Who knows! LOL
Conclusion: For PA use: great! As Subwoofer amp: Great! For home hifi, not any more. To grainy and flat. The new ones sound good and Crown is using new technology as all the other brands. But High end amps are better in this respect.
Crown these days for me: I still own 2 Delta Omega DO2000 amps, in working condition but to heavy for on the road. One Geodyne II as monitor amp.
In my PA i switched to Dynacord/Electrovoice. But Crown is never out of sight!
I sold my old DC300 years ago. But if i can get my hands on a DC300A series II... 😀
Regards,
Courtec.
Carver amps are a PITA to work on. very complex circuitry and the circuit boards are of poor quality. and i have never been impressed with the sound quality. grainy is how i would describe them.
Crown amps...as a PA amp the macrotechs were awesome. tons of power. small package. built like a tank. also a PITA to work on. also small heatsinks that would clog with dirt. these relied on a fan to stay cool. fans would get noisy or the bearings would gum up.
The Crown CE series of amps has to be the WORST designed amp i have ever seen! what were they thinking...thin flexible circuit board with surface bout parts on the back and a giant heatsink bolted to the top...what do you think will happen??? the board flexes and all those little surface mount parts pop off the back! terrible design. no wonder there was 15++ revisions to that amp.
The crown 602,402 etc series was a purchased design. crown wanted to compete against the cheaper amps in the market so they sourced from C-Audio for those models. easy to work on. not very reliable and when the blow...they blow! they blow EVERYTHING! you pretty much just replace every transistor on the channel and they melt the speaker relays...cheap cheap design...and not a good one either.
the newer crown stuff. lots of problems. gone is the macrotech quality. this new stuff is just really bad. crown has dropped to the bottom of the pile for me. frankly i would rather own a Peavey than a crown these days from a reliability standpoint.
The crown macro reference. the original one i have heard and was quite impressed with. its no Krell, Pass or Levinson but it was reviewed well and for studio monitors, you could do a LOT worse!
I just see no reason to mess with these amps for home use. that's a personal opinion of course. but with all the information out there about adcoms, haflers, Pass DIY stuff, there are just better choices. your money could be better spent.
Crown amps...as a PA amp the macrotechs were awesome. tons of power. small package. built like a tank. also a PITA to work on. also small heatsinks that would clog with dirt. these relied on a fan to stay cool. fans would get noisy or the bearings would gum up.
The Crown CE series of amps has to be the WORST designed amp i have ever seen! what were they thinking...thin flexible circuit board with surface bout parts on the back and a giant heatsink bolted to the top...what do you think will happen??? the board flexes and all those little surface mount parts pop off the back! terrible design. no wonder there was 15++ revisions to that amp.
The crown 602,402 etc series was a purchased design. crown wanted to compete against the cheaper amps in the market so they sourced from C-Audio for those models. easy to work on. not very reliable and when the blow...they blow! they blow EVERYTHING! you pretty much just replace every transistor on the channel and they melt the speaker relays...cheap cheap design...and not a good one either.
the newer crown stuff. lots of problems. gone is the macrotech quality. this new stuff is just really bad. crown has dropped to the bottom of the pile for me. frankly i would rather own a Peavey than a crown these days from a reliability standpoint.
The crown macro reference. the original one i have heard and was quite impressed with. its no Krell, Pass or Levinson but it was reviewed well and for studio monitors, you could do a LOT worse!
I just see no reason to mess with these amps for home use. that's a personal opinion of course. but with all the information out there about adcoms, haflers, Pass DIY stuff, there are just better choices. your money could be better spent.
My experience with Crown products in general hasn't been good. Have had the misfortune to use them in a number of pro installs. Have had a number of failures out of the box when dealing with their crossovers. I contacted them and advised them of the problem and never even got a thank you from them. I will say they shipped me new product overnight. Out of 24 crossovers 21 were bad out of the box. The DC300 and 150 I wouldn't let my dog listen to. The Micro tech and Macro tech series if memory is correct were plagued with reliability problems and often failed when you needed them the most. The CE and CL series is the biggest POS I've ever seen.
With QSC I have used hundreds with 2 failures on the CX204 series 4 channel amps. I'll go QSC any day.
With QSC I have used hundreds with 2 failures on the CX204 series 4 channel amps. I'll go QSC any day.
What would you all suggest as a good subwoofer, home theater amp. Driving around 20 to 80 Hz. The Crown had very affordable watts/$, but I don't want junk. I'm not putting together a "budget" system, just somewhat reasonable in price. I just saw how many watts in mono mode the Crowns pump out and for the price, I could have bought a couple used amps and had over a 1K of available power per sub.
DLStryker
DLStryker
I like the sound of my Peavey CS800S at 1 watt in my living room. CS800x should have equivalent sound but has a heavier iron transformer instead of switching P.S. CS800 rev a, b (seventies, early 80's) have distortion at low power and are useful for PA only(loud), although if you get a bargain they have nice transformers for building a LM3886 chip amp. These also come in 400 watt versions, which would have better transformer (lower rail voltages) for a chip amp. The s & x suffix versions have sophisticated current-transformer-microprocessor-output-relay protection, whereas the old ones have a crowbar board that shorts the output to ground if the voltage gets too near the rail. People say sometimes a crowbar protector blows the fuse, sometimes it melts pcb traces. The service manual is freely available on eserviceinfo.com, has layout pictures and schematics, and useful industry part numbers in addition to the Peavey part number.
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I know that this thread is very old, but I would like to post my experience with my Crown amps.
I have purchased a couple of Com-tech 400 amplifiers for $75 each off of the internet and while both had problems initially, Crown tech support was always there to provide free diagnostic help over the phone. Kevin worked tirelessly to help me repair both amps.
Once I had both repaired, they both produced sweet sound. To test this, I borrowed my friend's DAC and used it in place of my Sound Blaster Titanium to drive the amplifier... It turned out that the weak link in my sound system is the $100 sound card in my computer because the sound produced by my system improved markedly with his inexpensive external DAC.
I would describe Crown sound as very full with an emphasis on bass. It's almost like these amplifiers put you directly to the right of the bassist in the middle of the band. I would emphasize the importance of purchasing a quality DAC to drive this amplifier though because the bass tends to get a bit loose and heavy (no pun intended lol).
Anyway, I'm going to get around to purchasing a Oscilloscope one of these days and use it to calibrate my Crowns. Until then, I've been running one of my Comtech's 24/7 and it has given me no trouble. A word of advice though: be VERY careful when working on a Crown. They are very complicated and one wrong move (like damaging a solder pad) can result in headaches for days.
Are Crown's worth it? Maybe, if you don't pay too much for one! I'm sure that you can build or purchase much better amplifiers now, but I doubt that you can get a much better deal for about 500 watts of power!
I have purchased a couple of Com-tech 400 amplifiers for $75 each off of the internet and while both had problems initially, Crown tech support was always there to provide free diagnostic help over the phone. Kevin worked tirelessly to help me repair both amps.
Once I had both repaired, they both produced sweet sound. To test this, I borrowed my friend's DAC and used it in place of my Sound Blaster Titanium to drive the amplifier... It turned out that the weak link in my sound system is the $100 sound card in my computer because the sound produced by my system improved markedly with his inexpensive external DAC.
I would describe Crown sound as very full with an emphasis on bass. It's almost like these amplifiers put you directly to the right of the bassist in the middle of the band. I would emphasize the importance of purchasing a quality DAC to drive this amplifier though because the bass tends to get a bit loose and heavy (no pun intended lol).
Anyway, I'm going to get around to purchasing a Oscilloscope one of these days and use it to calibrate my Crowns. Until then, I've been running one of my Comtech's 24/7 and it has given me no trouble. A word of advice though: be VERY careful when working on a Crown. They are very complicated and one wrong move (like damaging a solder pad) can result in headaches for days.
Are Crown's worth it? Maybe, if you don't pay too much for one! I'm sure that you can build or purchase much better amplifiers now, but I doubt that you can get a much better deal for about 500 watts of power!
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