New Crown Amp

[Vintage Pete]

Greetings again gang....I've been on a bit of a roll lately, treating myself to a few upgrades. You may recall I recently upgraded my office system,
a Crown-based system, with a DC-300A amp in pristine condition:

http://www.audioaficionado.org/vinta...ge-system.html

I've long been a fan of Crown components, having acquired my first Crown components back in 1974. Crown already had a very well established reputation
at that time, and their amplifiers were always one of my favorites, with McIntosh being my other top choice.

My acquisition of the DC-300A rekindled my interest in Crown components, past and present. I had always been intrigued by their smaller D-series amplifiers;
over the years I had seen the D-60, D-75, and the newer D-45 and D-75A models. In 1979-1980 I had worked at a flight simulation company and I used to see
these amps in the simulator audio cabinets and was intrigued by it.

My thought was to snag one of these little guys and utilize it as a dedicated headphone ampin my main system. My McIntosh C40 has a built in 20 watt per channel
amp that drives a headphone jack, it does a decent job but I always felt I could do better, and one of these little amps may be just the ticket. If I like it enough, who
knows....maybe I could even get another for the office system to keep my other Crown components company.

So, I start looking and I find a whale of a deal on one of these amps.

So.....here we go again! Here comes the UPS man now.....





Stay tuned, and we'll have a look at which one I snagged.....


Pete

[Vintage Pete]

Okay, so lets have a look at this little guy....















On the left side of the panel we have signal presence LED's and IOC (Input-output comparator) LED's. The input level attenuators are very nice,
detented controls with aircraft style knobs. Very nice! The entire amplifier has that quality look and feel that Crown was always well known for.







We have a barrier strip for speaker outputs (I won't even be using these) and combination XLR/tip ring sleeve input connections.




We see that Crown still includes a proof of performance report with each unit, just as they did 35 years ago:




Okay....so let's whisk this little guy into the office to do a temporary setup and see how she sounds. I can't wait!


Pete

[Vintage Pete]

Okay, so we'll set it up with the office Crown system and see how it does as a headphone amp.














So, it's all hooked up and I put on my Sennheiser HD580's for the moment of truth, and.......WOW!!! This little amp delivers
the goods, and then some. It sounds absolutely wonderful. Never heard my phones sound this good, loads of punch, clean, and with
that same smoothness that I expect from Crown, with a lot of "air" around the voices and instruments. This little amp blows the doors
off my McIntosh C40 preamp's monitor amp.

The amp is rated at 40 watts/channel at 1Khz, 8 ohms, and 35 watts/channel at 20-20khz. For a moderately powered application like I will
be using it for, it is tough to beat, especially at the price I got. I couldn't be more pleased.

Now it's time to break and give Ivan a call, since I know I will want some balanced interconnects for the final installation in my main system.
Of course, Ivan fixes me right up with a pair of Wire world Equinox XLR interconnects. (they will be here tomorrow).


As I sit here looking and listening to this little gem, I don't really want to take it out of the office....I'm kind of liking the way it looks too.
But plans are plans....


Pete

[Vintage Pete]

Okay, so we get home from work the follow ing evening, and we realize there is no way I can leave the amp in the box until the
following Wednesday, (when cables are scheduled to arrive) so we'll have to improvise:




We can use an open set of unbalanced outputs and an RCA to 1/4" plug adaptor.

This will get us going for the moment. Now lets get this baby installed!

















In talking to my good friend Dan (aka jdandy) he nudged me into an idea that dealt with something that was already
kind of in my mind-I really didn't want a headphone cord dangling from the amplifier's high location in my system...he said
"too bad, Pete you couldn't locate that jack somewhere near where you will be listening...." and so that was all I needed to
realize I just needed to run a nice long, uncoiled headphone extension cord from the front panel jack, under the unit and
behind the system, and then out the front at floor level at a location where my standard cord can now reach either to my sofa,
or my listening chair:





And so, we are in business....I'm enjoying some really great headphone sound, from a really slick little amp from a company
that I never lost my love for. I'm sure I will enjoy it even more tommorow when my new cable from Ivan arrives.


I have just one very minor caveat with this amplifier: it does emit a very faint mechanical transformer buzz. I didn't even notice
it the first night; only when I had my head right next to the amp while setting it up in my main system did I notice it. I put a piece
of sound transmission blocking rubberized foam under the unit which took the already faint sound out nearly completely. A nearby
flourescent light I have in the room makes more noise, for example. In consulting a forum on the Crown site I see that this is
characteristic of these little amps. I'm really not worried about it at all.


All in all, I'm really enjoying my new journey with my old friend from way back: Crown International.


Now about the fact that I miss having this little amp in my office: Let's just say we will pick that up in a future thread, very soon....


Thanks for reading folks.....


Pete

[US Blues]

Pete- too bad you didn't get that UPS gal that always brings Dan his gear.

[Vintage Pete]

Originally Posted by US Blues

Pete- too bad you didn't get that UPS gal that always brings Dan his gear.

Yeah, Dan has all the luck!


Pete

[jdandy]

Pete.......You better believe it.

[jdandy]

Pete.......Really great thread. I enjoyed reading through the steps from delivery until it was making music. Lots of good photos, too. The Crown D75A is a clean looking amplifier, and slim enough to install it almost anywhere. The long cord idea looks like it is working out perfectly. Happy headphone listening my friend.

From your little teaser, I'm thinking there is an instant replay in the works for the office system. Maybe I can get my UPS girl to make that delivery.

I have seen a number of AA members with Crown gear in their signatures. Perhaps they'll chime in about their Crown experiences. I know I had a bad case of Crown lust in the days when I bought my first JBL's. Crown and Mac were running the show.

[joeinid]

Very cool Pete. I like all the audio play. Looks like you had some fun. Priceless. We need more detail on how she sounds.

[Vintage Pete]

Originally Posted by joeinid

Very cool Pete. I like all the audio play. Looks like you had some fun. Priceless. We need more detail on how she sounds.

Joe....the sound is very clean, transparent, lots of punch, and as I mentioned, very "airy". It is very quiet, with a rated signal to noise ratio of 106 db. I haven't heard it with speakers connected, I really don't have a convenient way to do that at the moment, but I would think it would be excellent in a near field application. I was struck by the solid bottom end listening to the phones. I would expect so, with a rated damping factor of 400.

The headphone jack is wired directly to the outputs, with no padding circuit-so it delivers punch to the headphone jack. Attached is a spec sheet on the D75A, along with the cosmetically identical but slightly lower powered D45.


Pete