Members Magpel Posted December 4, 2007 Members Share Posted December 4, 2007 I bought a used Crown D50 power amp for my fledgling composers studio about 17 years ago, on the same day I bought a Roland U20 keyboard, an Alesis MMT 8 sequencer and some little JBL 1 monitors--my first MIDI rig. Everything else has been back in its box for years, but I still use that Crown D50...until today. I blew out the right channel. Thought it was my Tannoy Reveals at first but due dilligence "revealed" it to be the Crown. Well, 17 years of service, and bought USED for 150 bucks to begin with. No complaints here. Now on to the important follow up: would you replace it with a new or used power amp, or use this opportunity to move to powered monitors? A colleague may be willing to part with an amp he's not using for cheap, in which case I'd probably take the cheapest route to status quo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted December 4, 2007 CMS Author Share Posted December 4, 2007 I blew out the right channel. Thought it was my Tannoy Reveals at first but due dilligence "revealed" it to be the Crown. Well, 17 years of service, and bought USED for 150 bucks to begin with. No complaints here.Now on to the important follow up: would you replace it with a new or used power amp, or use this opportunity to move to powered monitors? I'd be cautious about cheap amps (which is different from a friend selling you a good amp cheap, but he'd have to be a pretty good friend). Amplifiers really do sound different, and honestly, the D50, workhorse that it is, isn't a great sounding amplifier. Look around for a used Hafler P1500, which should be a good match for your Reveals. Or an Adcom 535 It's a consumer amp but sounds really good and it's quite inexpensive. There are almost always a few on eBay. A friend whose ears I trust picked up a couple of the new Alesis RA150 power amplifiers (someone said they were Behringer, but I don't believe it for a minute) and was really impressed with them. He was using them to replace the headphone amplifiers in his studio, but hooked them up to his monitors to check them out and they compared favorably with his Haflers. It might be a sleeper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members philbo Posted December 4, 2007 Members Share Posted December 4, 2007 Hmmm... reminds me of a band I worked FOH for who used DC150's and DC300's as their power amps. All went really well till one night the amp driving the bass cabs got an internal short and dumped about 85 VDC across the speaker & shot the one of the voice coils out into the audience. It was fairly spectacular, lots of smoke & stuff! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members John Sayers Posted December 5, 2007 Members Share Posted December 5, 2007 If you can pick up a used Bryston 2B or 3B they are a beautiful power amp IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kendrix Posted December 5, 2007 Members Share Posted December 5, 2007 I'd be cautious about cheap amps (which is different from a friend selling you a good amp cheap, but he'd have to be a pretty good friend). Amplifiers really do sound different, and honestly, the D50, workhorse that it is, isn't a great sounding amplifier. Look around for a used Hafler P1500, which should be a good match for your Reveals. Or an Adcom 535 It's a consumer amp but sounds really good and it's quite inexpensive. How strange. I have a Hafler 1500 driving my KRK 7000B's in my studio. I have the Adcom 535 in my family room as the main stereo amp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Magpel Posted December 5, 2007 Author Members Share Posted December 5, 2007 My friend brought the amp by tonight--it is in fact a Teac AH 500, a kind of audiophile "hi fi" integrated amp. I hooked it up. It sounds simply lovely. Is there any good reason not to use this to power studio monitors? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members D Charles Posted December 5, 2007 Members Share Posted December 5, 2007 I didn't even know Teac made power amps. I love Crown but only used them for live. I've still got a couple of early/mid 70's DC-300s around that work flawlessly. There was this old one that had; 'Laboratory Power Amplifier' on the front that always blew up but after that they got their sheite together. If the Teac sounds good and you can afford it then go for it. I'm using a very old Yammy Natural Sound receiver to run my monitors right now and it's sweet. One more thing, there was a very positive review of the ART single space amps to run studio monitors in Tape Op. The cat went on and on about how much better his monitors sounded with this amp (seems like he had a Hafler or some brand I've heard of before). Haven't heard them myself, but they're small and lightweight and not that expensive brand new. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted December 5, 2007 CMS Author Share Posted December 5, 2007 My friend brought the amp by tonight--it is in fact a Teac AH 500, a kind of audiophile "hi fi" integrated amp. I hooked it up. It sounds simply lovely. Is there any good reason not to use this to power studio monitors?No reason not to use it as long as you're OK with whatever he's asking for it, compared to what you would have to pay for what's been recommended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Magpel Posted December 5, 2007 Author Members Share Posted December 5, 2007 No reason not to use it as long as you're OK with whatever he's asking for it, compared to what you would have to pay for what's been recommended. Right. He paid 400 for it new 6 years ago and he's asking 150 for it, which seems reasonable for a pretty (by my lowly standards) Hi Fi receiver. That also puts it right in the range of the very cheapest stuff referenced in this thread--the Alesis RA150 is 200; the cheapest of the ARTs is down there too. My think is that this Teac makes an excellent stop-gap for me; right now, I'm upgrading preamps and mics and looking into sound treatment; great new monitors would be the other logical component of this global upgrade, but it is the one I decided to put off (well, that and new converters). When I do decide to upgrade monitors, this Teac will move "upstairs" quite nicely, 'cause believe me it is a fair bit better than the Sony that currently powers my stereo. And it has all the connectivity I need, being modest of need. And the knobs turn so smooth, it takes me back to 1972. So as long as there is no abject SHAME in using hi fi components in a spare room composer's studio, I think I'll buy the Teac... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members philbo Posted December 5, 2007 Members Share Posted December 5, 2007 Right. He paid 400 for it new 6 years ago and he's asking 150 for it, which seems reasonable for a pretty (by my lowly standards) Hi Fi receiver. That also puts it right in the range of the very cheapest stuff referenced in this thread--the Alesis RA150 is 200; the cheapest of the ARTs is down there too. My think is that this Teac makes an excellent stop-gap for me; right now, I'm upgrading preamps and mics and looking into sound treatment; great new monitors would be the other logical component of this global upgrade, but it is the one I decided to put off (well, that and new converters). When I do decide to upgrade monitors, this Teac will move "upstairs" quite nicely, 'cause believe me it is a fair bit better than the Sony that currently powers my stereo. And it has all the connectivity I need, being modest of need. And the knobs turn so smooth, it takes me back to 1972. So as long as there is no abject SHAME in using hi fi components in a spare room composer's studio, I think I'll buy the Teac... No shame from my perspective - - if it does the job, it does the job. If not, then not... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted December 6, 2007 Moderators Share Posted December 6, 2007 I love my Alesis RA300. Picked it up for $175 on eBay. It reminds me of the Adcoms. Very fast. Honestly, I'd look for an Adcom, Hafler or the Alesis for the same amount of money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Magpel Posted December 7, 2007 Author Members Share Posted December 7, 2007 Hmm, thanks all for the good advice. I'm gonna buy the Teac, I think, because my plan is to upgrade to some powered monitors soon enough, then what good is a plain ol' power amp? Plus the Teac sounds really good to my ears--immediate improvement over the Crown, and the knobs, I'm telling you...they're positively creamy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted December 7, 2007 Moderators Share Posted December 7, 2007 Creamy is good. / ; ^ ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Paully Posted December 9, 2007 Members Share Posted December 9, 2007 a kind of audiophile "hi fi" integrated amp... Is there any good reason not to use this to power studio monitors? A couple of considerations. 'Integrated' implies that you have to go thru another preamp to get to the power amp. As long as gain-staging isn't a problem, why not use an IA. Also, rule of thumb is to buy an amp that will deliver twice the RMS power that the speakers' peak power is rated at. The low power of the Teac may affect loud music(amp compression). Teac parts are also a sore spot. As long as it's a stop-gap purchase and you like it, I'd say go for it. Just don't get used to it. Best, Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Magpel Posted December 10, 2007 Author Members Share Posted December 10, 2007 Hmmm. Decision is not made yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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