Replaced the Soundcraftsmen's

[XJRGUY]

Hi All,

I had been using two monster Soundcraftsmen Pro Power 10's with my home theater.

One recently developed a problem with one of the channels (crackling at any volume level)

My entire system is Sony ES on the audio side, and Sony on the video end. I remembered that Sony had produced a very fine ES amp a couple years ago, the TA-N9000ES.

I ended up picking up two of these amps in excellent to new condition and run them in the "BTL" mode.

So far so good. The Soundcraftsmen amps always sounded good, but my fiance and I agree the Sony amps sound much better.

I also rewired the entire system with brand new 16 gauge monster cable and spade connectors. These connectors ARE AWESOME! I will never use bare wire again. I could have picked up better sound just through this. My old front cables were wired with some ancient PIN terminated Monster cable that looked like battery cable, LOL! I think it was over 15 years old!!

XJRGUY

[danger boy]

pictures.. we need pictures!!! ;)

congrats on the new Sony amps.. what are you going to do with the old Soundcraftsmen ones? not that i'm interested, just curious is all.

[XJRGUY]

Hi and thanks.

I am going to get BOTH of the Soundcraftsmen amps gone over completely and refurbished to new.

The Sony's sound SO damn good I am beginning to believe that there may have been something up with the two pro power 10's from the get go.

I know that SC sound is legendary so I wonder if I was missing something from the outset of me buying and setting them up.

The TA-N9000ES pair is nothing to sneeze at, but I wasn't expecting it to sound this good considering the Soundcrafstmen quality.

I ran the Sony's through some small tests. They really seem to have VERY tight control of the RTI12 drivers. I was really making them dance on some stereo passages.

One thing I like about the Sony's are their minimalist, understated and classy appearance. They perfectly match my STR-DA777ES that I am using as a preamp and they are FANLESS so they don't suck in dust.

When I set them up yesterday I recabled and also RECONFIGURED.

Both Sony Amps are 5 channel, but can be bridged and run in a "BTL" mode. I have them running in BTL + 1 mode. Here's the kick - Instead of putting BOTH FRONT Stereo RTI12's on one amp, I put ONE on one amp, and the other RTI12 on the second. My Center RTI12 I have Bi-Amped via BOTH amps too. Then I have each rear on it's own separate amp.

I figure in 2 channel listening, each RTI12 will have ONE amp driving it that way giving the reserve of the amps power supply for critical passages. The recable job was an eye opener to spade connectors and like I said I am never going back to bare wire again. The security of the spades is really nice. I was using PIN connectors to the fronts and bare wire to everything else and the PINS were always coming out of the two front RTI12's

XJRGUY