Amcron Dc300

One interesting thing I found. I had had my crowns for a good few years before I got on to the Rave scene. My first rack contained a pair of 300's. On the first night of using them, they cut out and I thought all was lost. Then they come back on again, and I realized that they contained thermal cutouts. Larger Harrison amps followed this episode and the crowns were shifted higher up the scale.

I used DC300s on bass duties for years, sometimes full range. Whereas mine always ran lukewarm they destroyed more of my bass and mid drivers than anything else before or since. They seemed to delight in going DC as often as possible, often due to failure of a small signal transistor here and there, we always bought Crown replacements from the proper UK agents but every now and again one or two cabs would fall silent mid gig. We donated them to some big churches in the Ukraine about twelve years ago after using in my hifi for twelve years before that (where they were totally reliable). Loved 'em when I got them but I honestly feel they are off the pace now in terms of definition and accuracy. 

Well guess i was lucky, I never took out any drivers with my Dc300 II's & ran them for years & years on mid tops both playing dub reggae sound system & standard sound hires, bands & Dj's... literally 100's of gigs & like i say NEVER missed a beat once, guess i was lucky,  mine where super reliable & sounded superb.

Edited by Nick Sasquash - 03 August 2012 at 8:21pm

oldskool wrote:  We donated them to some big churches in the Ukraine about twelve years ago after using in my hifi for twelve years before that (where they were totally reliable). Loved 'em when I got them but I honestly feel they are off the pace now in terms of definition and accuracy.

To answer Sheggy's query I was using my last DC 300 for hi fi (which came out of a recording studio when I first got it) and then got a couple of used Chameleon 2200s in for a church install. I took the Chameleons home to listen to them and they just revealed so much more of what was being played. The Crown sounded smooth but to my ears was just smoothing everything out too much in my system using KEF Reference speakers at the time. It was such a shock how much better the chameleons actually sounded that I ended up listening to lots of amplifiers and bought a huge Musical Fidelity NuVista amp in the end. Funnily enough the Chameleons went into a church mobile rig and to my knowledge are still working ten years later despite the shocking build quality!! As always so much is down to system matching, I have Quad Electrostatics as well in my 2nd hifi system and could imagine the Crown amps sounding much better through those.  I am putting together a very high quality smallish rig for my daughters band and hope to get away with 100% tannoy drivers,  would like to use MC2 amps for that if possible. I have some Bose 1800 series 2 that I keep for running 2 inch comps where the old class AB Bipolar smoothness works wonders. The Crowns can and do sound very nice it's just that in my own comparisons with more recent designs a lot of detail just disappeared from the mix.

Edited by oldskool - 03 August 2012 at 11:51pm

Apart from the thermal cutout, mine have never gone wrong apart from once, when a fuzzy noise appeared. Greenwich Audio, who were the Crown service agents at the time, told me what to go and buy, (a resistor,) and instructed me over the phone, it was easy.