Adam

I use Crown K's and D-75A's for that reason.

In regards to brightness, the brightness is because the high frequency speaker is too strong in regards to the midrange and or woofer. When sound is a little bright Wayne suggests adding "compensation" on the crossover. This is done by soldering resistors to the crossover portion feeding the high frequency driver which lowers the power going to the high frequency component only if I've got it right. You can get a collection for less than 20 bucks, use a soldering iron, and play until the sound is to your liking.

With the do it yourself crowd here they live to tweak. You can spend hundreds/ thousands on cables or 20 bucks on resistors. Don't take it personally when you hear things like "sheesh". It's a reaction to what is often considered a sleazier part of the audio business, not you personally (unless Adam knows you from somewhere?).

I've never had a Crown amp but from the comments I've seen on the boards they're well respected. With any luck you won't have brightness anyways.

Best wishes for the new year.

Grant.

HTH
Bill W.

What does this have to do with the reference series? Well, all Crown amps I have heard display the characteristic that I have described, so I guess the reference would just be more and better.

As for brightness, since I purchased a real time analyser and digital processor I have learned that all of my "bright" speakers have linearity issues in the top two octaves and upon correction sound great. I am now convinced that driver and room issues swamp the tiny differences that exist between switching and amplifying devices. I used to be a capacitor and cable freak, so on some level, I did not want to believe the data, but I can't ignore the best sound I have ever had in my house. I also can't ignore that a computer hooked to a "PA" has put kilobuck's worth or hi-fi in the bedroom. Some might not agree, but it is sweet to me.
Thomas

Everyone else's posts are on point and on par with my own experience, and don't involve transistor breakin or warm cable voodoo.

Adam

Amps. Most amps sound the same when operating at low levels - it is when you start to push them that they start to sound the way they sound. I have only "heard" the referance amps once, in the studio so I can't comment on them. However, I have found that crown's pro amps are very good, I have lots of use out of teh crown a 5000 ( 5000watt+ in bridge mono) running subs, and for a long time that was teh defact standard for touring. That is getting unseated a bit by QSC and the powerlight series though (PL 9.0 and 6.0 at 9000watts and 6000watts respectively).

What I can tell you for sure is that the amps are like the 1 bit that has teh LEAST impact on sound. - converts in teh CD player (and the clock they use) does make a differance, but the top 2 most imporant parts are room and speakers.

if I had to rate them-
45% - room
35-40% - speakers
7-10% - cd player - or record play - or 8 track......
5% - amp
.001 % - use of fancy cable sets

if you want to see wht you are hearing get a 40$ mic (ecm8000)and get teh demo for sia smarrt.

any way its late talk to you later.