what amps to power 3-way dipole, $800 budget

[thadman 10+ year member]

The issue with used vs new is that, I doubt ill drive them hard enough to notice the difference sonically or enough to break them. I will however notice a difference aesthetically, throwing down $800 on a bunch of used gear is hard to swallow, at least on my budget.

If the QSC RMX amps are that much better though, I'll highly consider them

 

[thadman 10+ year member]

I've heard crowns fans are 71dB, if so what frequency is that? Is it the same as the RPM of the fan?

Could I simply replace the fan with another fan of the same size?

Im considering building an amp rack, so I could line the sides of the inside with acoustic absorbing foam/fiberglass It should quiet them down a good deal

 

[thylantyr 10+ year member]

Proamp cosmetics arn't a big deal. The face is usually ok and not messed up,

but you will find scratches on the top/bottom of the amp because they may

have been stacked on top of each other. If stacked, you won't see the scratches

anyways and chances are you will scratch your new amps if you stack them

or even if you made an amp rack with shelves, you can make the rack tight

so there is little gap to notice any scratches.

The non-variable speed Crown XLS runs their fans at full speed, ie lots of noise

as the fan blade spins at high RPM, akin to your computer fan making noise.

The variable speed design may spin the fan at three speeds, low - medium - high.

If the amp starts to get hot, the fan RPM rises to cool the amp. The higher the RPM, the more wind noise you hear.

You can replace the fans with lower noise fans but remember that there is a trick

in the fan business. To get a fan to make less noise, the easy way to accomplish

this is to reduce it's speed, which reduces air flow. You need to find a fan with

equivalent CFM spec for the same physical size so it fits and check the dB noise

rating of the fan. It's counter productive to find a low noise fan with lower CFM

than the original one - hehe

To reduce noise, make a sealed cabinet amp rack with air flow vents,

maybe an intake and exhaust somewhere and then install sound absorbing

stuff inside. If the amp rack is 'open', then the fan noise will still be heard.