Here's the schematic for the Macro Reference (which got the positive Stereophile review). The question posed was essentially, "what does TIM sound like?". The Crown D-Series are readily-available on Ebay at fairly low prices, so I was suggesting that the DIYer just pick one up cheap and listen... 😎
The quality of the product is irrelevant to the Stereophille review, especially if the reviewer chimp is particularly petulant - this was likely a fine amplifier.
Impressive ... "replaced by a dark, thick, grainy character that obscured all the finer details of the musical performance. No matter which digital processor, preamplifier, or interconnects I used, the quality remained the same: thick, woolly, and opaque, with a brittle, forward midrange. "
... equals ...
"a fine amplifier" ...
No wonder the youngies are not interested in audio ...
... equals ...
"a fine amplifier" ...
No wonder the youngies are not interested in audio ...
Crowns have a hard sound to them , not difficult to hear the lack of music with it's electronic grain, worst there allergic reaction to playing bass. The review was spot on and easily understood by code readers ...
🙄
🙄
Yes, the shape of the logo is quite important when one is listening with eyes and preconceptions.
I use two macro references, running parallel mono -each amp has its own 220 V service.
I run a theta gen viii series 3 in front. At full volume (and that's load) absolutely no noise from speakers when music stops - you can't get a darker background than that. To me they sound damn good, closest to live music. But what do musicians who play live music know.
If you can't tune an instrument by ear or create a tone or a landscape of tones and patterns, what makes your assessment on the "sound" of something relevant to the masses?
I run a theta gen viii series 3 in front. At full volume (and that's load) absolutely no noise from speakers when music stops - you can't get a darker background than that. To me they sound damn good, closest to live music. But what do musicians who play live music know.
If you can't tune an instrument by ear or create a tone or a landscape of tones and patterns, what makes your assessment on the "sound" of something relevant to the masses?
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It sounds like the Crowns have the classic power supply problems - they are either very sensitive to the quality of the mains, or they pollute their spur very badly while running. Isolating them to a large degree from the rest of the system as best as one can, as you have done, makes a significant difference.
Background noise when no signal is not the problem, it's that noise modulation, as abraxalito calls it, occurs - the harder the amplifiers are working the more they generate spurious "noise" - they fail to allow the system to reproduce subjectively correct dynamic range.
@ Canyoncruz,
Errr, What about the fans, those quite too after full load ... 🙂
That is not what's meant when you listen to or describing a Dark Backgound, there's alot of electronic grundge when listening to crown amplfiers, there's no dark background, all the low level details is lost, of course not a problem at full load ...
😀
Errr, What about the fans, those quite too after full load ... 🙂
That is not what's meant when you listen to or describing a Dark Backgound, there's alot of electronic grundge when listening to crown amplfiers, there's no dark background, all the low level details is lost, of course not a problem at full load ...
😀
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The fans give you visual indicators like their blouses over their faces.
What I do like about them is the dynamics. I guess I lean more towards dynamics. I have had for period of time, Krells, which I found not so engaging energy wise, counterpoint, which i like but still not quite the live sound. I like tube amps that aren't designed to sound like tubes.
What is the difference between noise modulation and RIN? Someone explained once why there is no RIN in audio.
What I do like about them is the dynamics. I guess I lean more towards dynamics. I have had for period of time, Krells, which I found not so engaging energy wise, counterpoint, which i like but still not quite the live sound. I like tube amps that aren't designed to sound like tubes.
What is the difference between noise modulation and RIN? Someone explained once why there is no RIN in audio.
I know what you mean about energy, I got it from a Krell KSA200 after a re-cap and lowered Bias. Far less class-A, the sound was edgier , but with that jump factor like live music, Class-D gets this also , but yep similar hardness and top end hash.
Getting an amp to sound alive is really a balancing act ...
Getting an amp to sound alive is really a balancing act ...
It's a balancing act, but not for the reasons you're implying. Correct sound has both, I repeat, both - energy, jump factor and smoothness, zero harshness, finesse. It then depends totally on what's on the recording to supply one, or the other, or both at the same time - not the playback system ...
The balancing act is getting the engineering of the system, as a total package, correct - not trivial, fall off a log easy to do - hence, rarely heard ...
The balancing act is getting the engineering of the system, as a total package, correct - not trivial, fall off a log easy to do - hence, rarely heard ...
Look carefully at the measurements made by Stereophile. This Crown amp is exactly what we try not to design, for hi end.
See what I mean? ... rarely heard ... 😀
Live sound of course has that balancing act in hand in spades, that's why it sounds "live" to our ears - a tremendously aggressive sound can be immediately followed by a quiet, soothing tone - and they both sound perfectly "right". Audio systems struggle to do that, and hence fail to convince - quite often very badly.
A good test: very aggressive pop music, with a low key vocal mixed in - a typical hifi will completely mangle the vocals, make them sound very artificial, unhuman - it takes a very clean playback to project the stridency of the backing instruments, while at the same time rendering the human voice in a completely realistic way ...
Live sound of course has that balancing act in hand in spades, that's why it sounds "live" to our ears - a tremendously aggressive sound can be immediately followed by a quiet, soothing tone - and they both sound perfectly "right". Audio systems struggle to do that, and hence fail to convince - quite often very badly.
A good test: very aggressive pop music, with a low key vocal mixed in - a typical hifi will completely mangle the vocals, make them sound very artificial, unhuman - it takes a very clean playback to project the stridency of the backing instruments, while at the same time rendering the human voice in a completely realistic way ...
No grainy, 2 dimensional sound , but you would have to actual listen , hear and make a decision of course without your ABX box. Wait didnt you do just that at the Chicago Audio show , eyes instead of Box, wow,🙄
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