Heresey II updates to III's and bridging a Crown DC 300 amp

[jfjoaa]

Hi, I'm new to the forum so like it was once said before go easy! I have a couple of question and thought this would be the place to come and find the answers. I've recently inherited my father's stereo system. A set of Heresy II's and a Crown DC 300 amplifer. To say the least its amazing. I also have a Denon AVR 3600 and a pair of Quartets. I now have the Heresy's hooked up to the Denon and Quartets hooked up to the Crown. As my friend can testify and as I'm sure my neighbor's can. You can feel my Stereo 25 feet away from door LOL. I've got a Denon 5 disic 360 running to the Crown along with my pc. The difference from the PC to the Cd player is staggering I think. The music is so much more full and warm with the cd player its great. So my questions are these. Someone already contacted me about updating my Heresy II's to III's how much will that cost? and I need the speaker stands too I have the dark birch colored ones how much once again? Now growing up my father had the Crown hooked up to a pair of Belle's and yes my mom still has them along with a set of Klipschhorns ya its quite a system. Unfortunetly my father passed away 4 yrs ago so I can't ask him but I swear he had the Crown which is a 2 channel amp hooked up to 4 speakers? Is that possible? I may be wrong, and so I was wondering if I bought another Crown DC 300 could I bridge that one and this one together to have a 4 speaker syestem? Like I said I'm not savvy at this game like most of you are I know what sounds good and thats Klipsch and a Crown tube amplifier. I thought my Quartets were ok when I got them, kind of flat not a lot of bass. I've had them hooked up to 2 different receivers one was a Sony which sounded good, then my Denon (which I blew the left amp up 2 times LOL). They just didn't fill the room like the Khorns do or the Belle's back home. Then I hooked them up to the Crown and OMG that took care of that problem LOL. I put Korn in and my buddy was on the floor in front of the speaker adjusting the speaker due to having just moved it and when the drum hit he fell on his butt LOL true story! So if you could help me out with those questions I'd appreciate it thanks.

Jim

[djk]

Hit the space bar twice every now and then, please.

Makes it easier to read.

[jfjoaa]

roger that

[artto]

Well, since you're using Crown DC300, rest assured, there is almost nothing (I mean NOTHING) that you can do to harm the amp electronically including a wide variety of accidents and abuse, including using it as a speed control for your washing machine or welding.

Not a good idea to try and bridge two of them together. You can easily bridge both channels of one amplifier, however be aware that doing this also doubles the noise and distortion as both channels are combined. The Crown D series amps are like that.

Your father very well may have had all four speakers being driven at one time from the DC300. It can tolerate 4 ohm loads. Actually it can tolerate pretty much any load you want to throw at it ~ that's its claim to fame!

EDIT: Also, with many soilid state amps that are direct coupled (no output transformer) to the speakers, their power output can double as the load (impedance) is cut in half. Therefore each of the speakers would still be getting the same power.

example: 100watt amp at 8ohms, 200w at 4 ohms. One 8ohm speaker + one 8ohm speaker wired in paralell = 4ohms, wired in series = 16ohms ~ the amp would put out only 50watts

[jfjoaa]

Thanks, thats all I was looking for I'm glad I found someone who appreciates my most prized possesion. Its all I have left of my father and my childhood I still can't believe how good it sounds?

I'm still not sure whats all in store for the ol' girl besides rocking out this Sunday for Memorial Day. We'll see if the cops get called, oh wait I don't care! I'm still nervous about hooking up 4 speakers to it just because I would hate to break it.

I also wanted to state I am running a straight line 2 preamp

I have a few more questions for you and that should be all for now.

How do I post pics on here?

I have white noise as I call it when I adjust the channel's and when I adjust the activater bass/treble knobs I've been told its just dust take it in and have it cleaned out no big deal is this correct?

There's also a button by the LOUDNESS button thats says FILTER what does that exactly do?

Thanks again have a good one!

Jim

[Daddy Dee]

Jim,

Welcome to the forum. Upgrading Heresy II to Heresy III kits are available, I think, for about $275 per speaker. Give a call to Klipsch parts to confirm that. The good news is that it's an easy upgrade and if you like, you can offset the cost of the upgrade by selling the HII parts left over.

The Heresy III is a very good sounding speaker, indeed.

[artto]

The Crown Straight Line 2 is actually very good preamp (unbeknownst to most audiophiles). It’s mostly a downsized, version of the legendary Crown DL2 controller/preamp. Very Quiet. Somewhat smooth sounding. One of Crowns’s better preamps. Much better than, say, a Crown IC150/150A which was the preamp “mate” for the DC300.

As long as you can keep the DC300 from overheating (difficult to overheat) you should be OK. The DC300 is one of those rare devices you can drop out of an airplane at 10,000 feet, let it land in a lake and sink to the bottom, hook up some bare speaker wire, twisted together, and with no load, run a radio frequency into it for a couple weeks, reconnect it to your stereo and still expect it to work. The DC300 wasn’t in continuous production for 30 years for nothing.

You should be aware that using all four speakers (hooked up two by two in parallel) will only net about 3 decibels of increased output. The easiest way to connect them would be to use banana jack connectors that can be “stacked”. The DC300 has banana jack speaker connectors so this should be fairly easy. Make sure you keep the polarity correct or you’ll lose bass response.

Regarding the “white noise”, from what you are describing I don’t think this is “white” noise. It sounds like it’s simply a case of some dirty controls. Get yourself some Caig DeOxit (Radio Shack and other electronic stores). You can use this on all connectors/connections ~ everything where there is electrical contact between two surfaces intended to conduct electricity. This is good stuff. The Crown may have hermetically sealed control potentiometers which may make it difficult to get down into the part. Sometimes just rotating the knobs repeatedly can clean up some or most of the scratchy sound.

The button next to the Loudness button, I’m pretty sure is a low frequency “rumble” filter, typically used for LP/phono playback. It shouldn’t make much difference unless you’re experiencing problems with record playback, especially if using subs.

To upload a picture select the “options” tab, then click on “Add/Update”. Depending on your display you may need to scroll to the right to see everything.