Can pro amps possibly sound good? Crown, QSC, etc


I have been looking into pro amps for a to-be-built HT/music room. Recently I came across an old review in The Stereo Times: The Complete Audiophile Magazine, which reviewed 2 discontinued Crown amps, the K2 and the Studio Reference I. The K2 the reviewer thought "not distinguished or especially musically refined", but the Studio Ref he thought an EXCELLENT full-range amp. It does have some amazing specs:

Signal-to-Noise (A-weighted) below rated full bandwidth power: 120 dB.
Damping Factor: >20,000 from 10 Hz to 400Hz.
780WPC into 8 ohms, 1160WPC into 4 ohms.

The review is here.

From what I've found so far, there are possbile downsides to using pro gear in an otherwise consumer setup, but in my case I think these are non-issues:

-fan noise: not an issue for me since I will have an equipment closet. Won't have to do a "fan mod".

-ugly: again, not an issue for me with an equipment closet

-hum: I believe not an issue as long as I use balanced interconnects from the prepro. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

-expects pro-level input levels: I think not an issue if the amp has dip switches or gain controls?

And yet, over on a couple of AVS forum threads, I actually got asked to leave when I started suggesting pro amps. It seems as though some of the audiophiles there (and the same guys might be over here) don't even want to hear about a class of gear which imo just MIGHT sound good. It just isn't worth "polluting" an audiophile thread. Am I missing some other downside to pro amps, other than the above pints? Were these guys attitudes based on something substantive and audibly detectable, or just a form of audio bigotry?

I'm not saying all pro amps are going to be great (for instance I know the Behringer A500 is lousy), but might there be some good stuff too, like QSC DCA, or Crown Macro Reference (other suggestions would be welcome)?
syswei

Showing 1 response by snapsc

No doubt I'm a little biased as I currently have a Crown XLS2000 for sale, but here are my observations after 4 years of use:

-  massive soundstage, very wide but only moderately deep
-  very powerful low end
-  top end is not sibilant but also not silky smooth...pretty revealing
-  complex passages are done well but not as well as a multi$$$$ amp
-  stable at 2 ohms
-  absolutely silent, black backgrounds and fan never comes on
-  tons of power...1050 watts at 2 ohms per channel
-  gain controls...fantastic way to match to the source so that the source volume isn't maxed out at 9 o'clock, great way to match to a subwoofer preamp out so that the sub gain doesn't have to be turned to 4 o'clock and great way to match left right main volume without a balance control
-  Reliability
-  Absolutely never thumps my loudspeakers when turning on/off or when my preamp or source turn on/off
-  Relatively inexpensive @ $500 new

Yes, I think in certain systems, in certain rooms, with certain sources, you may prefer a $1000 Halo (or something similar) but in addition to the price, you are giving some things up.

Maybe its not someone's cup of tea for their main system, but I suspect they would be pretty happy on a value/sound benchmark to use pro audio in their secondary system.

(and why am I selling it if its so good?....easy answer, its fun to try different things and there is only so much space in the house)