SEAWOLF97
04-27-2007, 10:16 AM
I found this on an audio forum. Does anyone know if its true ? Are they 2 different products or merged ?
"Originally posted by Jane Spellman
I don't know much about the Crown pro amps but I recently heard a BGW pro amp driving Martin Logans (very revealing speakers) and I was shocked at how good that amp sounded. Everything I have ever read or heard about pro amps was that they all had great bass but were thin or bright in the midrange and high end.
This is not what I heard from the BGW amp. Top end and midrange were totally flat and transparent. Ditto for the Carver pro amps (although these are digital).
I have heard several amps in my system driving my Maggies so I am not of the "all amps sound the same" club but I will say that amp differences are subtle and not dramatic. Maybe what we are hearing from these pro amps is the dramatic advantages of having MASSIVE power reserves. My friend's BGW amp pumps out 600W/channel on his Martin Logans.
Sorry for such a late response to your earlier post but I just had to respond to your info on the BGW amplifier. You see, while I was in college I worked in the Engineering department of BGW. This was many years ago of course but I still remember it well. The company was in Hawthorne California. Factory, engineering, front office all in one building. It was never that big an operation.
Do you remember which model BGW amplifier you heard? If it was a BGW 750, then you are correct about the flat frequency response and massive power reserves. The BGW 750 had a massive linear power supply with huge capacitors on the +/- rails (I think it had two 150,000 uF capacitors each roughly the size of a peanutbutter jar). That amp was almost completely flat right down to 20Hz as well. It had excellent low end response (not surprising since BGW got it's start supplying the amplifiers for the movie Earthquake).
I put together their first automated test set and one of the biggest problems getting accurate power and THD measurements at full power was keeping the A/C mains from dropping below 115VAC when pumping a 20Hz sine wave just below clipping level into a 4 Ohm load. We basically had to have a variac to compensate for the A/C line drooping. They pull that kind of power from the A/C mains.
Anyway, thanks for bringing back some old memories. BGW was bought by Nakamichi (sp?) shortly after I left and ceased to exist some time after if I'm not mistaken"
"Originally posted by Jane Spellman
I don't know much about the Crown pro amps but I recently heard a BGW pro amp driving Martin Logans (very revealing speakers) and I was shocked at how good that amp sounded. Everything I have ever read or heard about pro amps was that they all had great bass but were thin or bright in the midrange and high end.
This is not what I heard from the BGW amp. Top end and midrange were totally flat and transparent. Ditto for the Carver pro amps (although these are digital).
I have heard several amps in my system driving my Maggies so I am not of the "all amps sound the same" club but I will say that amp differences are subtle and not dramatic. Maybe what we are hearing from these pro amps is the dramatic advantages of having MASSIVE power reserves. My friend's BGW amp pumps out 600W/channel on his Martin Logans.
Sorry for such a late response to your earlier post but I just had to respond to your info on the BGW amplifier. You see, while I was in college I worked in the Engineering department of BGW. This was many years ago of course but I still remember it well. The company was in Hawthorne California. Factory, engineering, front office all in one building. It was never that big an operation.
Do you remember which model BGW amplifier you heard? If it was a BGW 750, then you are correct about the flat frequency response and massive power reserves. The BGW 750 had a massive linear power supply with huge capacitors on the +/- rails (I think it had two 150,000 uF capacitors each roughly the size of a peanutbutter jar). That amp was almost completely flat right down to 20Hz as well. It had excellent low end response (not surprising since BGW got it's start supplying the amplifiers for the movie Earthquake).
I put together their first automated test set and one of the biggest problems getting accurate power and THD measurements at full power was keeping the A/C mains from dropping below 115VAC when pumping a 20Hz sine wave just below clipping level into a 4 Ohm load. We basically had to have a variac to compensate for the A/C line drooping. They pull that kind of power from the A/C mains.
Anyway, thanks for bringing back some old memories. BGW was bought by Nakamichi (sp?) shortly after I left and ceased to exist some time after if I'm not mistaken"