Vintage Crown D 150A II Amp -- How good was it?

Well...the Crown was a very reliable amp that had the dubious distinction of being the first solid state amp to use an i.c for the input. It was considered a workhorse. Compared to today's solid state amps it's not very good. Semiconductors have come a long way since that amp was built as has circuit topologies. I remember people bringing them into the McIntosh clinics decades ago only to find that the amp didn't meet it's distortion specs. It's possible the amps that I saw tested were poorly maintained. Most amps like Phase Linear, S.A.E., BGW, and Harman/Kardon amps walked all over the Crown amps sonically but were certainly not as rugged or reliable as the Crown amps were. Although consumers did buy Crown amps it was mostly used professionally for sound reinforcement applications.

BTW I believe the original model designation was a DC150A.

Forget it--I had one of these in the 70's-D150--POS used to go DC without warning and took out a pair of speakers each time.

I fell for the big Sales pitch after they had the fire at the original factory
blah blah-help us rebuild buy our product-yeah right!

Avoid be warned.

Des

the Allman Brothers Band used stacked DC-300A amplifiers for their PA. I was in college at the time and i saw them hauling their equipment out the back after they finished playing. I don't think it would be a good choice for a stereo system these days. But they must have been pretty reliable amps or a group with a lot of bookings probably wouldn't be touring with them.

I still have my DC300A that I purchased new. I'v had it in my office for the last few years, but finally had to retire it because of big time transformer hum. When I bought the Crown back in the mid 70's, I mated it with a Mac C-26 (which I still have). The reason I didn't buy the matching MC2105 amp was because it was just a little too expensive, so I settled for the Crown. Big mistake, but I was young and on a limited budget.........