New amp is making me grin from ear to ear =) - Page 4

I think you will like the rti12s with the added power. I use a pair of rti150s for my mains. I drive them with a 300 watt/channel Crest pro amp.

Really outstanding punch and clarity. While my Elite 53tx did a good job, these spkrs really come alive with the higher power.

I love the look of the Carver Zr1000 amps, but they're pricey! For a 7.1 channel system, they would cost me around $3k for four of them, which I can't afford.
The Crown amps are still interesting, though I'd have to make sure I got them adjusted right, so each time I turned up the volume after turning them on, I got the same power output. Right now each channel is tuned within 1-2dB of each other, for a convincing "seamless" multichannel sound. I'm afraid if I went with the Crown amps, I'd have to either accept some variation as I manually turned the knob up to the level I'd set it at, or else recalibrate every time I turned it on.
I'll keep looking; The thought of getting 200wpc for a 7.1 system for around $1K is mighty tempting. Otherwise i might have to go with an Outlaw ($1700 for 7x200watts) or something.

It's not that bad at all..This is why I have my Crown set at 50 % on both gain knobs on front.I know when i want to listen to music or play dvds, that my sound will be EXACTLY where i want it!When I introduced the Crown into my setup, I turned it to 50 % and RECALIBRATED my front speakers for this. When my other 2 get here, I will do the same for them. By running all at 50 % it is very easy to remember where I need to be.It would be just as simple to take a white paint marker(SMALL TIP) and highlight the "mark" where you wind up calibrating the amp at. It has white little "tick marks" going around the gain knobs for left and right, so this would be easy to do.

brickie

Also ordered a 3' pro audio male XLR to male RCA cable from AVCable.com today, hope to have it here by at least friday. Once I have everything up and running, I will most certainly post a review here of the results.

I'll be sure to post here first Brickie.

After checking Crown's website, I was a little surprised to find out that Crown is actually under the Harman International umbrella. I sure hope that they operate as a separate entity because I absolutely despise the sound of Harman Kardon amps - to me, they have a very dark, overly warm and laid back sound that cuts off the upper frequency highs. Someone please tell me that Crown amps don't have that same sound. I prefer a crystal clear, detailed, and slightly forward sound on movies and music. I don't want to regret my purchase before it even arrives.

Crown amps don't have that same sound.




acutally...they really don't. I like them because of their detail. very clear. you ok now?

Harmon aquired Crown a few years ago. They also aquired C-audio that was in Europe. Supposedly these Crown amps are based on C-audio designs that were already on the market.

I just got done making a couple adapters. I picked up some of these from Radio Shack on my way home:

http://www.radioshack.com/product.as...t%5Fid=274-010

and proceeded to chop up an extra Acoustic Research RCA cable. The Acoustic Research RCA cable was shielded (copper); I hope this works OK. I found the wiring diagram for the XLR plug on the Internet...

Cool, let us know how that works out, didn't even think about trying that.

I have these: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/GXM133/ and would recommend them to anyone looking to add a pro-amp to their mix of equipment...no need to destroy a perfectly good RCA cable . But thats just me.

And wow lots of people are getting pro-amps, cool stuff if you ask me.

some of you might also want to look at pro shops in your area. many of them already stock the cables and adapters needed to hook up your gear.

from my own personal experience......

do not use and "adapter"..... buy a premade cable that is RCA to XLR or solder your own XLR connector onto an RCA cable....

an "adapter" requires an extra connection and does degrade the signal.....

cheers!

Tubeguy, when I talked to Dave G. at Carver, he said I would need a different kind of cable than the XLR - RCA, something like an RCA to 1/4" phone. Is this correct?

After reading this thread and hearing what you say about the Carver in previous threads, my choices will be the Carver XLS-402A or the Crown ZR1000. It's going to be a tough decision. I will be driving Axiom M22ti's using Denon 3805 pre-outs for the front L & R channels.

the carver professional ZR1000 will accept XLR or 1/4" TRS plugs.... i believe that the crown XLS-402A will only accept XLR plugs....

the crown amp is a very nice amp, but the carver pro ZR series is a step up in features (12 volt trigger, soft start, digital amplifier).....

cheers!

Yes, check out your local pro-audio shops. The few in my area were selling them for ~$39.00 per cable. Also, they came in 6+ foot lengths. I wanted something smaller and cheaper, so I opted to make my own. Besides, soldiering is fun!

The XLR plugs at Radio Shack ARE pretty decent. Radio Shack obviously buys them from another manufacturer as they do not have Radio Shack marked on them. They are solid powder coated metal with gold plated prongs. The housing features 2 strain relief set screws that clamp onto the wire and prevent it from pulling from the plug.

My experience with adapters, in general, led me to other options. They generally put undue stress on the component connectors. Also, they have a tendency to loosen or become completely disconnected over time. YMMV!

Once everything is hooked up, I will post my review here on the Carver ZR1000 pro-audio amplifier...

Thanks for the quick response, tubeguy. I do like the soft start feature as well as the 12V trigger.

Has anyone heard Pyramid amps? I was looking at this one because it has more than enough power to drive my front towers (Mission M74i rated at 150w power handling). I'm pretty sure it won't have remote trigger, but does anyone know if it has the auto-mute feature when powering on/off like the QSC RMX850 does?

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=245-525

I'd rather spend the extra $100 and get the better brand (QSC, etc.)
than go with a Pyramid brand of amplifier only because I'm biased towards
their car audio products which are overrated. Sometimes you just have
to spend a little bit more to feel good in the long run.

That's kind of what I figured - oh well, not much of a price difference anyway ~$60 bucks. Most likely going to go with 2 QSC RMX850's. I'll use one to drive my front towers, and the other to drive my center channel and the Clark Synthesis transducer going under the sofa. The rears will still be powered by my receiver, which should make the receiver happy - only having to drive 2 bookshelves!

Thanks for the thoughts and this awesome thread!

Oh please, if you can tell whether an adaptor is used compared to a non-adaptor hookup you have better ears then any human I know of. Please tell us how it degrades the signal? Please tell us...

have you tried it?

i used two switchcraft adapters before i made my own cables.....

with my receiver and my carver pro ZR amp, there was a difference.... i got noise in my signal with the adapters that disappeared when i used my custom cable.....

maybe you should reserve your judgement until you actually try it....

HI
Sorry to be such a newbie when it comes to pro amps, but am I correct in assuming that the auto-mute feature is what prevents the "thump" from passing through the speakers? This is a major consideration for me; I'd rather not have to manually set the levels every time I power on; I think it would be hard to calibrate things as closely as I have it calibrated now, even if I mark the spots on the dials, since these amps have so much power. So I guess that that precludes consideration of the Crown amps; I couldn't find any such feature on the Crown website for any of their models in my price range. Ultimately, I'd like to end up with 7 channels of amplification, and while I don't mind manually switching on 4 amps, it would be a bigger pain to have to manually turn each of 7 volume knobs to exactly the right spot every time I power up. My wife is bewildered as it is by my home theater, and only having everything programmed into macros for a pronto has made it user-friendly for her.
So what pro models don't make a thump? And has anyone done an A/B comparison with the so-called "audiophile" amps?

Thanks!!!!
Bart

Hmmmph, you assume to much. I worked pro-sound for many years, and used many adaptors for many things, not once did I hear a degradation of the signal. We are talking about low voltage low frequency transmission hear there is nothing wrong with using an adaptor vs a cable. Again if you heard a difference you have better hearing then any human alive, period. If they were 100% good condition adaptors there is no way noise could be introduced to the signal path. Explain to us how they introduced the nosie???

bartman_451,

There is nothing wrong with running the dials on the amp at full so you will get a 100% repeatable volume evey time you turn them on, in fact this is the preferred way to run amps.

no i didn't.....

you have not used adapters with my amp and my receiver with my speakers.....

the hundreds of thousands of dollars of pro sound speakers that i sold over the years would not reveal slight differences either....

just like the time i ran three RCA cables hooked together with barrel connectors from another room to get my computer sound into my receiver.... i had noise and hiss..... i replaced the three separate cables and connectors with one run of cable and soldered the appropriate connectors on the ends.... the noise and hiss disappeared...

cheers!

You just had a bad connection with the adapters. However, I prefer to use the method with the fewest mechanical connections, so a custom (or standard) cable would be the preferred connection method!

--Bill

Most likely the noise and hiss was caused by the RCA cables and not the adapters. Still, the fewer connections (with good cable) the better!

--Bill

Explanation? Probably just the same old bad RCA cables that were used each time!

--Bill

Ok either the adaptors you were using introduced nosie or not, the speakers you sold would revel that noise just as well as any consumer speakers would...your not making much sense here. Did you try the speakers you sold with your adaptors in the chain??? lol .