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Crown Itech or QSC PL380 for TH-118

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Mario Roman:
Hi All,

I know I'm probably beating a dead horse with this but after deciding to go with the PL380 for the 2 TH-118's I've just ordered, I found some Crown Itech 6000 and 8000's online for about the same price. The 6000's are new and the 8000's are "factory refurbished". According to Crowns published specs, the 6000 can output 3000w/channel @4ohms and the 8000 4000w/channel @4 ohms. While all places we play (classic rock) only have 120v 20amp wall power available, would it be in my best interest to purchase the Crown over the QSC given the higher power rating? Do the Crowns need to have 220v or a power distro instead of 20amp "wall power" to achieve their rated output? I can't afford a MA9000i or 12000i that was suggested in a previous post since this is my 60-80 gig/yr weekend warrior (keep my sanity from the wife and 2 teenage daughters) side job. So this is my best option for now. Any help/ideas as always is greatly appreciated. Thanks once again everyone.

Mario

Kevin Messerschmidt:
I've used an itech 8000 for years..both on 110 and 220..I love it.  If available I use 220 if not 110.  I tried the 380 and it was nice but ran out of gas sooner than the 8000.  I used both amps on martin wsx subs.  Efficiency is similar to th-118.  IMO either amp would work great.  I would buy based on the best deal... I hope that helps

Mario Roman:
Thanks for the reply Kevin. One thing I did notice in doing a search on the "old" forum is that there were a lot of failures with the Itech and Crown apparently had a pretty poor turnaround in general. Have you had any problems or experiences like this?? It's hard to choose based on the best deal as you suggest since there's only a $19.00 difference between the two.

So my quandry is do i pay the same price for a 2500w/channel amp that has a rock solid performance reputation or do I go with one that'll give me 4000w with really nice limiting features and DSP that has had reliability issues since its inception in the mid 2000's. After rereading the listing, even though it says condition new at the top the discription says it was sent to the factory and certified Pre-owned with the latest firmware updates. The TH-118 would be better powered with the Itech and it also has a much better damping factor (usefull when trying to control a big driver with a 4.5" voice coil) but since it's my only amp for my subs, if it's out of service my rig is down. And at roughly $2000.00 for an amp, I cannot afford to have a spare.

To all, if this was your decision what would you do?

Mario

Scott Hibbard:
According to my calculations, the TH-118 will reach ~ 141.5 db with 2500w (PL380 stereo).  With 4000w (Itech 8000 in stereo) you will get ~ 2 db more out out the speaker (143.5 db) but if you are intending to push any speaker to it's limit where 2 db makes a difference, you need more speakers not just a bigger amp. 

The extra 500w that the 6000 offers you over the PL380 you would never notice in terms of SPL.  In fact I think you'd be heard pressed to hear any audible difference between the PL380 and iTech8000 in terms of SPL. 

The PL380 will run fine off a dedicated 120v/20amp source - just don't put anything else on that circuit. 

Personally I go with the solution you have the most faith in for reliability (and I'll let you make that assessment). 

ScottH

Mario Roman:
Since I'm using the TH118's with the new SM96 from Danley, I know that either amp is never going to have to work very hard to keep a balanced sound in the system for what we do. Thus it really comes down to how good the amp sounds running subs, the feature set and reliability. As far as features, I much prefer the Itech for its FIR filters, limiting options, and world power capability. From what I've read on the web as well as PSW, most people seem to prefer the Itech in this application. Most of the opinions seem to be that the subs sound tighter/punchier with the Itech.

Thus is comes down to my most important factor which is reliability. Most of the failures I've read about are from 2007-2009. Not much after that. It would seem that Crown has finally worked things out. So I guess the whole point of this thread it to get some opinions from current Itech users what their more recent experiences have been. Do they seem  to finally be reliable or are there still a bunch of problems but no one is posting anymore because the subject has been beat to death. Honestly if I knew that the Itechs now had the reliability of the QSC it'd be a no brainer.

Mario

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