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Crown DC300A

K

kew48

Dec 9, 2006
63
0
#1
Picked up a Crown DC300A power amp used in a studio setting . Has anyone ever used this as a bass amp coupled with a preamp. This amp was a workhorse back in the 70's. It is still used in many PA systems .It is a tank. It is about 155 watts per channel bridgeable to over 300 watts at 8 ohms. Covers a frequency range from 20Khz all the way down to DC.--Ken
 
#2
kew48 said:
Picked up a Crown DC300A power amp used in a studio setting . Has anyone ever used this as a bass amp coupled with a preamp.
Click to expand...

Lots of us used them for bass rigs back in the 70s and 80s. I sold my last one several years ago and I think it's still in use for bass. Need to know anything specific?
 
#5
That Alembic is a tube preamp. It is not an overly warm or wooly pre by any means though. Same circuit as in the Fender Showman Amp. You can get it to distort, but you have to cascade the output of 1 channel into the other to do so.

Great pre - but clear and clean is the name of it's game. Having said that- if you;re after clear and clean - it would be a decent match I would think.
 
#7
I still have my DC300A Series II, though it's retired (probably should sell it, no this isn't a for sale ad).

I used it with my Alembic F-2B for almost 20 years.
It'll push 155W/channel into 8 ohms (per channel), and 260W/channel into 4 ohms (per channel).

I'll concur that you do need to point a fan into the back of it if you run a 4 ohm load on either channel. I don't think I'd try bridging it into 4 ohms.
 
#8
kew48 said:
Yes,
Did you use a tube pre-amp or SS? I was told the tube pre-amp will tend to balance the sound out. If so what kind?--Ken
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I roll my own preamps of both persuasions, and prefer solid state 98% of the time regardless of what amp it's feeding. I wouldn't presume to tell you what you'll like better though.;)

BTW, I was a Crown warranty tech for a few years. The factory actually wanted you to bridge at 16 ohms, and considered 8 walking on the wild side back then. They eventually changed the specs to reflect how most people used them. A good one should make ~700 watts bridged into 8 ohms. For all the great reputation the DC300 had, I've seen plenty of smoked ones -- same as most brands actually. But there were some hugely unreliable amps on the market in the 70s as well, and Crown looked good compared to those. I've also seen 'em eat more speakers than any other amp ever made, FWIW. A preamp with decent high pass and low pass filtering would probably be a good idea, IMHO. Those amps go pretty far both ways if given free reign.
 
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#9
Passiwind,
These amps were and still are great. They have a frequency response from 20Khz down to DC. (sooo low)I believe that's why they fried so many speakers but also why they sounded so grreat on the low end . If your pre has a bad pot/attenuator and passes something close to DC, you will have a problem. Some suggest you capacitor couple the pre to avoid any risk of a DC signal. This particular one came out of Studio-in-the -Country.-I think I'm gonna try to recap it and try it out. They sure did sound nice in that studio--Ken
 
#10
kew48 said:
Passinwind,
These amps were and still are great. They have a frequency response from 20Khz down to DC.
Click to expand...

Nuh-uh! I've used them for ultrasonic amplification, they go a lot higher than 20K. They do love to couple DC and blow lots of stuff up though, if you let them. That's why I mentioned a high pass filter as a good idea.

Best of luck Ken. I'm one of those geezers who totally embrace modern technology, and the weight alone would keep me from ever considering carrying an old Crown to a gig, but I also believe there are many ways to achieve sonic happiness. Hope it works for you!:bassist:
 
#11
phillm47 said:
In the late 70's I used one in bridge mode along with an Ashley preamp. I had to use a muffin fan on it to keep it from thermally shutting down - other than that it worked great.
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+1.....I used mine in the late seventies with an Ampeg SBT preamp and it shut down frequently, I never got around to having a fan installed and sold it off.

George
 
#12
Yeesh..... migh have guessed there were still some of them around......

I was (am? They never revoked it....) a factory trained tech for Crown when they were making those..... and tape recorders too.......

Neither the original shiny front DC300 nor the newer DC300As have enough heatsink. At one time there were clamp-on auxiliary heatsinks available.

And, IMO they don't sound that great, nor are they really enough power to justify their weight. But they last like anything.

Just don't use a DC300A with an old Alembic preamp and cascade the two channels of the pre, maxing them out......

Yes it will feed back, and no we never could get rid of it, and probably the offender in that case would still think we were idiots to suggest that he not do that..... "But it sounds so good cranked up"............ :eek:
 
#13
Really surprised by JT's writings. I think it's a reliable and good sounding amp. There is better out there, but there is also a lot worse. I used to work for Solotech, one of the big PA rental companies in Canada, and we had racks and racks of DC300's, with no overheating problems.
 
#14
Reviving this 7 year old thread. Just picked up a DC300A --- the one with the black knobs/dials, and without the stereo/mono switch on the back. There is another version, that I don't have, features the silver knobs/dials with the stereo/mono switch on the back.

Question: how would I modify my DC300 w/o the stereo mono switch into a mono-only amp. Want to be able to push all the
output into 1 cabinet --- harnessing both channels, but in mono.

Any advice?

Thanks!


Jerrold Tiers said:
Yeesh..... migh have guessed there were still some of them around......

I was (am? They never revoked it....) a factory trained tech for Crown when they were making those..... and tape recorders too.......

Neither the original shiny front DC300 nor the newer DC300As have enough heatsink. At one time there were clamp-on auxiliary heatsinks available.

And, IMO they don't sound that great, nor are they really enough power to justify their weight. But they last like anything.

Just don't use a DC300A with an old Alembic preamp and cascade the two channels of the pre, maxing them out......

Yes it will feed back, and no we never could get rid of it, and probably the offender in that case would still think we were idiots to suggest that he not do that..... "But it sounds so good cranked up"............ :eek:
Click to expand...
 
#15
Back in '73 when we arrived in Toronto, I got a job working in the service department of a high end stereo store. We sold the DC300, not sure if it was the A model. I found pretty much the same as Jerrold. A bit mundane for low frequency work. It also had a tendency to output one or the other of it's supply rails into the load. A lot of very nice loudspeakers met their demise because of that amp.
 
#17
83_Silberpfeil said:
Reviving this 7 year old thread. Just picked up a DC300A --- the one with the black knobs/dials, and without the stereo/mono switch on the back. There is another version, that I don't have, features the silver knobs/dials with the stereo/mono switch on the back.

Question: how would I modify my DC300 w/o the stereo mono switch into a mono-only amp. Want to be able to push all the
output into 1 cabinet --- harnessing both channels, but in mono.

Any advice?
Click to expand...

Download the manual for the specific version you own. The rewiring procedure is in there. On early ones it requires adding one resistor and one or two jumper wires. Crown has an excellent tech support forum as well.
 

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