Crown iTech series any good?
Printed From: Speakerplans.com
Category: General
Forum Name: Amp Forum
Forum Description: The 'Stopping Jake Fielder moaning constantly' forum description...
URL: https://forum.speakerplans.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=70637
Printed Date: 07 June 2023 at 10:47am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.06 - https://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Crown iTech series any good?
Posted By: JamesFlipside
Subject: Crown iTech series any good?
Date Posted: 10 September 2012 at 2:26pm
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What are people experiences with the crown iTech and MAi series?
------------- "DFA switch fitted" |
Replies:
Posted By: fredos666
Date Posted: 10 September 2012 at 3:03pm
| Bad... Unreliable, blow for nothing... Specialy outside under the sun... |
Posted By: JamesFlipside
Date Posted: 10 September 2012 at 3:18pm
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Thats a shame, considering the macro-tech series are such tanks. Lab Gruppen FP+ ? ------------- "DFA switch fitted" |
Posted By: infrasound
Date Posted: 10 September 2012 at 3:50pm
FP+ = 
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Posted By: JamesFlipside
Date Posted: 10 September 2012 at 4:01pm
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So much money though :( Are there second hand ones around? ------------- "DFA switch fitted" |
Posted By: Motion54
Date Posted: 10 September 2012 at 7:26pm
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I've had two. Never has a problem. The earlier ones were unreliable when they 1st came out, but most if not all have gone back to crown and had faults rectified. Used mine (Itech 8000), at carnival for 2days on sub duty at full pelt and no problems. In my opinion, one of the best sounding lightweight amps. Another dude on here (venture sounds) swears by them. I had 2 on ebay upto this weekend. Sold one but now decided to keep the other. Listen to people who have used them rather people who listen to rumours. I might know Someone who is selling one |
Posted By: kedwardsleisure
Date Posted: 11 September 2012 at 11:44am
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horrible things ------------- Kevin North Staffordshire |
Posted By: U.Viktor
Date Posted: 11 September 2012 at 1:46pm
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I-Techs are around the very few of good sounding switching amps. For example they are much better in mids-high range than Powersoft K series. The general problem with the I-techs is the reliability especially tons of boards and connectors inside. Two of mine even did not survive a single transport by van to remote area of Romania... The roads in Romania are crazy bad anyways. Another thing is that I-tech has bit smaller power supply what you would except, so sometimes the long low-frequency tones are not so so strong. For example the PKN XD6000 beats the I-tech8000 in sustained power if we speak about low frequency response. Be very careful to get older/used ones! They had multiple glitches previously which has been eliminated then by hw/sw changes. Old ones are on the used market cause the repair is difficult and big rentals rather work with newer amps fully covered by warranty... |
Posted By: lost eden
Date Posted: 11 September 2012 at 1:49pm
| Was about to come running to the itech's defense, then realised what I've used are XTI... |
Posted By: U.Viktor
Date Posted: 11 September 2012 at 1:53pm
| The XTI is a joke compared to an I-Tech ;-D |
Posted By: VentureSound
Date Posted: 11 September 2012 at 11:41pm
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Really what Motion54 and U.Viktor said. I have three of these and they are good, powerful, nice sounding amps. You need to be careful when buying used, as the very early ones were unreliable and nearly ruined Crown's name. Over the years of production Crown sorted out the problems, and there are about half a dozen mods which have been made, some electrical and some mechanical. Things like ribbon cables working loose/ going brittle (which were changed later for tougher ones etc), and a few small components were uprated. Internally they are very complex with lots of SMT components (similar to powersoft in complexity) and as such when they need repair need to be taken to the distributor or a Crown authorised repair centre rather than your local TV repair man.
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Posted By: U.Viktor
Date Posted: 12 September 2012 at 9:48am
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We have had to repair booth I-techs, PowersoftK and PKNs previously.
What was a surprise that Powersoft amps are really not so complex than
I-tech. The amplifier part of Crown is at least twice as more complex
than PowersoftK, probably this is the reason why the interleaved
switching of the Crown sounds far better than simple Class-D Powersoft
:-) There are some parallel-connected small foil capacitors in the Crown , when one burns easily destroys the multilayer board and then pretty difficult to rescue the damaged board. |
Posted By: smitske96
Date Posted: 11 May 2018 at 7:27pm
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I have some I-tech 4000's laying around, and could't find the All-pass filters in the dsp.. Anyone had this problem before?
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Posted By: smitske96
Date Posted: 13 May 2018 at 1:32pm
Anyone? 
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Posted By: Motion54
Date Posted: 25 May 2018 at 6:51pm
I couldn’t find them either in my 8000 the other day. But to fair, the last time I accessed them was via a laptop and not via the front menu.
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smitske96 wrote:Posted By: smitske96
Date Posted: 25 May 2018 at 7:24pm
| Without the architect software, you almost can't do anything with the dsp.. |
Posted By: Motion54
Date Posted: 25 May 2018 at 7:29pm
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I generally use my LMS to make any filter adjustments. My Itech is used for kick duty only.
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Posted By: DjLeco
Date Posted: 27 May 2018 at 10:08am
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I-tech series are Class I (BCA, Ballanced Current Amp). Is one very good class amplifier but if precision adjustments of underlap/overlap settings bad adjustment occurs, it could fail easy. I have repaired 2 pieces, is a good amp but it's limiter, personally I don't like, it allow for some small period of times HARD CLIPPING until it limits to a clean sinewave, ans as all "burst power amplifiers", cannot sustain declared output power for extended period of times, as "oldschool" amplifiers can do. Some tests here. Crown Macro-Tech5000i: And here another model but the same in most part, Crown I-Tech 5000HD:     ------------- I'm A Stupid SMART Romanian... |
Posted By: smitske96
Date Posted: 29 May 2018 at 10:26pm
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So I've send an email to technical support from crown, and got a solution (hopefully). Maybe that I have some time tomorrow to see if it works. I'll keep you updated!
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Posted By: Motion54
Date Posted: 12 June 2018 at 7:55am
Cool. Any update?
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Posted By: smitske96
Date Posted: 12 June 2018 at 10:40am
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To be honest.. I haven't tried yet, but I can send you the email chain they send me (with the solution ofcourse). |
Posted By: Motion54
Date Posted: 12 June 2018 at 12:31pm
Just informing us in the forum should be suffice.
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Posted By: smitske96
Date Posted: 29 January 2019 at 12:27pm
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New question about the I-tech. I've searched the internet to find more about the available limiting but have one question about the average power limiter. I suspect these are not the same as the powersoft counter part, also looking at the limiting for their JBL products I can't get any confirmation, knowing they rate the transducers differently. Drivers used with current limiting: BMS 18S430V2 126 Vpeak 300 Watt APL B&C 15NW76-8 85 Vpeak 150 Watt APL RCF ND950-8 (1.4") 28 Vpeak 35 Watt APL 12NW76/DE800 with passive filter (8 Ohm nominal) 85 Vpeak 150 Watt APL Calculation for Vpeak = SQRT(R*P) APL = P_AES/4 Impedance plot of all cabinets are planned in two weeks, so that would give any more info. Has anyone more experience with the I-tech limiting? I've found some stuf about the I-tech HD but it's different from the older I-tech.
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