Crown Amp Drop Test

[Growly Lytes]

This clip shows some of the guys trying to make a Crown Poweramp fault or wreck & break but you must see it !!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZABk...eature=related

[brenner182]

metal

[warnergt]

Wow! And those are pretty heavy amps (like 28 lbs.). They aren't the
new lightweight amps (like 8 lbs.).

[scotch]

The amp still sounded good, but I think the music was broken from the get-go!

[Burlington]

Being an engineer must be fun.

[Growly Lytes]

At least we know the amp can be thrown at somebody when needed & it will still work later on !!

[madmachinist]

qsc has a drop test video:

http://media.qscaudio.com/media/building_legends_hi.wmv

they throw amps off the roof ~30 feet ,landing on the asphalt
parking lot !

and then play them.

[IntrepidCellist]

Originally Posted by Burlington

Being an engineer must be fun.

You build it, you break it!

[Plstrns]

MOST power amps will handle that. As long as a jack or attenuator doesn't hit the floor first, what's going to break? Particularly when any number of amps can be dropped before displaying a result.

Carvin used to have a similar video, throwing power amps in a parking lot.

[JimmyM]

Originally Posted by Plstrns

MOST power amps will handle that. As long as a jack or attenuator doesn't hit the floor first, what's going to break? Particularly when any number of amps can be dropped before displaying a result.

Carvin used to have a similar video, throwing power amps in a parking lot.

ya, really. nobody ever throws monitors or power amps off a roof, but everyone plugs cables into them. so let's see one survive a 2 ft. fall on the back panel with a bunch of cables plugged in.

[Jim C]

Most of you are probably too young to remember the full page ads that Crown ran back in the 70's with photos. Along the lines of the equipment truck runs off the road at 70 mph and all the equipment exited the vehicle through the side walls and was a complete loss. 3 days later a Crown amp or two is found in the mud and partially submerged. They wipe it off and it works perfectly and within spec. Includes photo of smiling roadie, wrecked truck, and amp.
Also like the current Reunion Blues clip that shows a Strat in a gig bag being thrown off a 4 story building onto an asphalt parking lot. Not a scratch an still in tune. Wonder how repeatable that test is.

[pgk]

my favorite was the old Joe's Sound and Salami Cabs torture test video, anybody remember that one?

[pgk]

[quote=Jim C;10141986]Most of you are probably too young to remember the full page ads that Crown ran back in the 70's with photos. Along the lines of the equipment truck runs off the road at 70 mph and all the equipment exited the vehicle through the side walls and was a complete loss. 3 days later a Crown amp or two is found in the mud and partially submerged. They wipe it off and it works perfectly and within spec. Includes photo of smiling roadie, wrecked truck, and amp.

i remember that! the joys of old age...

[pgk]

Also like the current Reunion Blues clip that shows a Strat in a gig bag being thrown off a 4 story building onto an asphalt parking lot. Not a scratch an still in tune.

wow!!!

http://www.reunionblues.com/detail.asp?product_id=RBG1

[thudfromafar]

Originally Posted by Burlington

Being an engineer must be fun.

[madmachinist]

"In the early evening of September 17, 1973, Jay Barth was at the wheel of a 22-foot utility truck that was loaded with sound equipment. Just north of Benton Harbor, Mich., an oncoming car crossed the center line; fortunately, Jay steered clear of the impending collision. Unfortunately, a soft shoulder caused the truck to roll two and one half times. Exit several DC 300As through the metal roof of the truck's cargo area. The airborne DC 300As finally came to rest—scattered about in a muddy field, where they remained partially submerged for four and a half hours. Jay miraculously, escaped injury; the amplifiers apparently had not. Unbelievably, after a short time under a blow dryer, all the amps worked perfectly and are still going strong. The rest—and the truck—is history."

Even today, some 40 years after their original introduction, many DC 300s are still used in professional audio applications, a testament to Crown reliability.

unfortunately, i remember (the ad , not the accident )

i think it was in GP( no BP magazine yet , GP had a "BASS
corner" of sorts .
and "international musician and recording " (anyone remember
that one !)

i've owned several DC300A's . great amps , but never tried
to throw one.....,

[Jim C]

Wow thanks for posting the script; I'm pretty proud of my memory on that one. I think I read it at my first real recording studio job in about 1979 in Mix magazine.
That studio had DC300's and DC150's; the big JBL's lasted a lot longer when the studio owner (an EE) modified the DC300's to only go down to something like 5Hz.

[hrgiger]

so all of these fairly new amps that people talk about here that just stop working out of the blue, what's their excuse? maybe instead of throwing amps off of buildings they should just let them sit idle at 'the practice space' for a week and THEN we will see what they're really made of!

[edwinhurwitz]

Originally Posted by pgk

my favorite was the old Joe's Sound and Salami Cabs torture test video, anybody remember that one?

I don't know the ads, but I have three Joe's cabinets that have stood up to a ton of abuse.

[greenboy]

Originally Posted by hrgiger

maybe instead of throwing amps off of buildings they should just let them sit idle at 'the practice space' for a week and THEN we will see what they're really made of!

That would be "underpowering". A most vicious treatment for the amps - and for the cabs they are connected to!