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Vintage Crown D 150A II Amp -- How good was it?

Hi,

I was cleaning up my spare bedroom and came across my old Crown D 150A II power amp. It was checked over by Crown about a year or so ago. Typical stuff -- old caps replaced, maybe some transistors. Anyway, I remember back in the 70s, the D 150 was considered to be a very good sounding amp. Some said even better than its big brother, the DC 300A. I keep it around as a spare amp.

For any vintage old-heads out there, any comments on how the D 150 compares to modern SS amps?
bifwynne
fjp
1 posts
 
I bought a demo of this amp about 45 years ago and it ran just fine until recently it developed a 42db hum 8 feet from my Infinity floor standing speakers. Guess I can't complain, but it's probably the transformer and would be prohibitive to get it fixed. So a week ago I upgrade my electronics for the first time since those early years. I now have the Emotiva XSP-1 preamp and XPR-200 power amp. The Infinities, probably 30 years old, still sound like new and I'll probably keep them till I die.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,590 posts
 
Its not the transformer. Either bad filter capacitors in the power supply or a channel may have a damaged transistor.
bifwynne OP
2,206 posts
 
Fjp, I'm NOT suggesting that you repair the Crown in light of the comments above which kinda "dissed" the amp. But if the problem is just some power supply and/or electrolytic caps and some transisters, and if you have an emotional attachment to the Crown, I believe the factory still repairs these old vintage units. The cost is not prohibitive. Of course, if it's a tranny don't even know if they have any in stock. You may want to call the factory for more info if you're still in love with the Crown.
pcrhkr's avatar
pcrhkr
258 posts
 
  • I am not sure what kind of snobs there are on this blog. Back in the 70s when I was looking for stereos I compared the crown straight line 1 and powerline to all competitors in the price range which was about $1000 for the pair. I even compared it to products which had twice the power. The power line one Crown straight line one combination held its own against a Yamaha M1 one power amp matching preamp with a regular equalizer and parametric equalizer. The straight line 1 powerline one combination sounded much more clear and the attack of the music and the impact was better. The Advantage of the greater power in the Yamaha was it got slightly louder. The lesser powered crown power line walked all over the Hafler power amp rated twice the crowns power using the same speakers turntable and music. The Hafler went into distortion before reached the levels that the crown would put out that supposedly half its power. This little dynamo was resounding and powerful for the 50 W per channel rating. It has 21,000mf of power supply capacitance and you see the house lights flicker when you turn it on. It goe wasaaammmm! You here the cans charging up. It was also compared to an Audionics a Canadian company at the time. Was very nice. The crown Still sounded better. The Speakers were JBL lancers. For decades I could walk into an audio king or Best Buy and listen to the best stereos they had and I still was not disappointed in my mine. I would have to invest three times the cost to get better sound. The crown sound was much like a McIntosh, but not as good on the low end. Remember though, a Mac is 4 times or more the cost. I recently acquired a Crown DC 150 a series II. Still running a straight line one preamp. It looked like new condition after 40 years. No mistake about it the DC 150 series II A great power amplifier for a medium size room up to a 20 x 20’ depending on your speakers. The DC in the model number means that the amplifier is capable of  frequencies all the way to DC or zero HZ. I dare the audiophile Snobs out there to find an amplifier anywhere close to its price range that will amplify from DC to 30,000 Hz with zero phase shift. That is what the DC 150 A series II will do. That is how stable of an amplifier this is. Extremely well designed amplifier. The reason it will blow speakers is your esoteric speakers are not supposed to run the low frequencies this amplifier can reproduce. Especially when over driven. You need fuses if you are going to get it on with this amp. For sound, best described as it puts majesty to the low end. Very neutral otherwise. It is not as airy as or bright as the PL one, but excellent. The DC 150series II leaves the power line one trailing for power output. For an average middle class home. More power than you will use. Both Crowns are completely silent at full volume no signal. It will drive most speakers other amps have trouble with. I still walk into Magnolia and not all that impressed. The speakers I have now are Paragon acoustics knock offs my brother in law help me build. He used to build them for a paragon back in the 1980s. Both Crowns are still in use every day, and both sound fantastic! So there!
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,445 posts
 
Working Crowns are fine for powering passive subs, but are somewhat too dry, coarse, grainy, and 2-dimensional for use with very transparent loudspeakers. But that's just for those with audiophile sensitivities, poor darlings. Picky, picky, picky! 
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