Crown

The Crown PZM 30D is a dynamic microphone that you can place on the inside of a piano or even on the floor. Its design is unique and allows it to pick up a great deal of specific sound. I have only used this microphone in the studio, as I believe that is the intended use for the microphone, but one could definitely use it in a live setting if they wanted to. OVERALL OPINION I've been using the Crown PZM 30D for about two years and I have found them to be quite useful in a number of different situations. The main use I have for the PZM 30D is to place it inside or on the top of a grand or upright piano. This picks up a lot of detail from the piano and will also isolate it really well if you have other instruments in the room that you do not want to bleed into it. I have also found this useful when recording noise or talking in a room if you place it on the floor as it will pick up everything in the room. The price of these is really reasonable for such a useful microphone. Having a pair of these is great and I use them all the time when recording piano and even sometimes for recording a Leslie speaker cabinet with a Hammond B3 organ. While these aren't the most versatile mics out there, as they can only be used for a few different applications, having them around is more than useful and they can really come in handy for the things it is good at. I can't think of any other type of PZM microphone that I could compare this to, as this mic is pretty unique. Overall I highly recommend these microphones for professional and home studios alike as they are great sounding and incredibly useful.

I've had my Crown D75 for about seven or eight years. It came into my hands in an unlikely fashion and I have been using it in a variety of ways since I got it. It is a compact dual channel power amplifier, good for power monitors that may be unpowered, or for using it as an head for a bass or guitar cabinet. It has both XLR and 1/4 inch outputs to send to a cabinet or speakers and it also has connections for speaker wire. In the front of it there is a headphone jack and a power switch. It then has a volume knob for each channel with green and red LEDs to show output level and overloading. I have used this amplifier successfully in a few ways. Right now I am using it to power a pair of Yamaha NS-10M studio monitors and it works flawlessly for this. In the past I have used it as a bass and guitar head by plugging my instrument into it and sending the amp to a speaker cabinet. While I didn't get as much juice out of it in this application that I would have liked, it did the job. I used it for mostly bass guitar as this worked much better than guitar. However, this unit is probably really designed to power studio speakers, and works best in this application. The price won't make you dig too deep, and I'm not sure you can find too many of these around, but if you can find one and need a compact power amplifier for your monitors, I definitely recommend it! While not extremely versatile in its use by any means, what it does do, it does it well and has a pretty good amount of power for a single rack unit.

The D-45 is a 2 35 watt amp with 4 Ohms and another 2 25 watts at 8 ohms. You can purchase this amp now much cheaper than you could when it first came out which makes it a steal now and a must have. You can rack this amp up and it will only take up one rack space. It is very durable for the road in case you are a traveling musician. The D-45 has 2 channels and 2 XLR or TRS inputs but it has no DSP. That is the main difference between this model and the more expensive models from Crown (no DSP). This Class AB+B amp will provide you will all of the power you need to get a great sound out of your set up in no time. There is no set up process involved and it is very easy to use. When I was using this for my system I made sure that I had some very good cables to go along with it to give my sound the best possible sound that I could give it for an affordable price. This amp only cost around 700 dollars now and was a little more when it first came out. Crown makes some of the best amps and when they came out with this one I was very skeptical at first with it not having DSP. Crown drops this amp with a full coverage 3 year warranty in case something happens but I don’t think anything can happen to this amp because it is built like a tank. The 3 knobs that are on the front are very easy to turn and they are not the type that will break off it you put too much force on them. This amp could last you a long time. I have used many Crown amps and the D class amps they make are some of the best out.

The Crown XTi 4002 is a amplifier that has 2 1200 watt amps with 4 Ohms, and it also has 2 1600 watt amps at just 2 ohms. This version of the amplifier will give you all the options you need to set your dsp options and you can have up to 30 presets on this model. That is a major upgrade from previous models from Crown. You will need to have a Windows computer in order to set up your dsp though, this could be a deal break for some folks that done use Windows systems. The amp is very easy to set up and use, it is one of the best amps I have ever worked with and it even cost less than a thousand dollars which really surprised me. This amp is rackable and it will only take up 2 rack spaces. It has filters and 2 XLR inputs. During the time that I was using this amp it really helped me put some solid low end into my set up that I was using at the time for live use. My other amps just could not bring that kind of power for the low end sound. The sound that you will get out this amp is powerful, it will really bring your overall set up to life. Everything is very clean with this amp, it is very quiet and makes no noise. I am very happy that I chose to purchase this amp last summer and still use it from time to time though I have moved on to a different set up. The sound quality is second to none, it is very precise and worth every penny. I have tried many models of amps from Crown and JBL and even Shure. This is by far one of the best ones that I have ever used.

The Crown Sound Grabber II is a PZM (pressure zone microphone) that can be suited for both live shows or in the studio. I personally only have experience with this microphone in the studio, although it is definitely suitable for use outside of the studio. The mic is definitely a unique one and those who don't know about PZMs, basically all you need to do it place it in a room in order for it to do its job and pick up everything around it. The mic has a hemispherical polar pick up pattern and will pick up frequencies between 50 Hz and 16 KHz. OVERALL OPINION I've been using the Crown Sound Grabber II PZM microphone for a little less than a year and I have found it to be an effective PZM mic. I don't usually use this microphone as the only mic around to pick up sounds, rather I use it as a supplemental microphone. I often won't use the sound in the final mix, but sometimes I find that it sounds great and is perfect to blend with. Beyond just using it to pick up all of the sounds in a room, it is also good for some specific applications like piano, as it is easy to place on the inside of the cover of the piano. I find that this does a great job of picking up the signal, but unless there are other things going on the in room I will generally again, use this a supplemental microphone with a condenser or a more detailed microphone. While this isn't the best PZM microphone that I have used, it definitely gets the job done and because of its reasonable price, it won't break the bank. This is the perfect microphone for someone who is looking for a PZM on the cheap, but who also doesn't want to get something that will break easily as I have found Crown to generally make reliable products, including the Sound Grabber II. All in all, the Crown Sound Grabber II is a unique microphone and is the perfect way to try out a PZM microphone.

The Crown D150A is a stereo solid state power amplifier. I have used it for powering passive studio monitors in the recording studio. Each channel delivers 75 watts of power, and like the name states, the whole unit gives 150 watts. It is quite basic in make up as it simply has two volume knobs on the front for each channel and has connections in the back. It has 1/4 inch connections and that is pretty much all that it has in terms of connections. It is a rack mountable piece of gear and will take up three rack spaces. As far as getting the job done, this amplifier will definitely power anything up to 150 watts that you would want to use it with, whether it be a guitar amp or a set of studio monitors. I would say that it is definitely best suited for use with speakers rather than a guitar amp, but it will work either way if you need it to. The unit is built well and is decently heavy, so it isn't anything that you would want to be moving around too often. Since it gives off a lot of power, it has a radiator system to keep it cool and for this reason it is heavy. The Crown D150A also has LED lights to show if your levels are clipping and has an on/off button with another LED as well. The price of the Crown D150A is usually reasonable, but will vary as you can only find these used since they are no longer being made. If you can find one of these it isn't something that you need to jump on, but will definitely get the job done well if you are looking for a reliable power amplifier that can get up to 150 watts.

The Crown PCC-170 is a surface microphone that can be mounted to just about anything. It is a condenser microphone that only cost 300 dollars and it is perfect for tables, podiums, and desktops. It has a max SPL of 120 dB and an output impedance of 150 ohms which is good for a microphone of this size and price. The frequency response is 50 Hz to 20 kHz and the polar pattern is hemispherical. OVERALL OPINION I have used this microphone for meetings for several occasions and even had it on a small table top podium. It is pretty small and it is also flat so it does not stick up very far from the surface that it is on or mounted to. The PCC-170 being the size that it is makes it pretty discreet and under the radar. The sound quality is decent. I have heard lot better from other surface microphones but for the price you just will not get much more because when it comes to table top or surface microphones you have to approach them differently than you would any other type of microphone. The PCC-170 does not pick up a lot of external or surrounding noise that is going on. It is pretty direct when picking up voices so you will need to be within 2 to 3 feet from it for your voice to pick up clean. A good thing about it is that it is very quiet. If you are not speaking into it, it will not make a single sound and it will even sound like no microphone is even on. That was a huge thing for us because we wanted to leave it on and not have to turn it off or unplug it in between speeches. So the fact that it is very quiet has helped us greatly by allowing us to just leave it on even if no one is at the podium to speak.