Crown C-D vrs ART C-A/B
 

Difficult to cede the ART the better, although, both with a tube
buffer for the input, the differences had me scrambling over rolling
what stock I have: GE, one below the 5-star broadcasting standards,
and two, circa Soviet military, similar class variants. I went back
to the GEs, even though, even with the ART I and running Soviets, the
GE's seemed to have a little more mojo and sizzle to vacuum
odd-harmonics.

Where the Crown seems different is presence and stage image;-
contrastingly, where it doesn't, is overhead depth and power reserve,
which kicks-in for an overall louder amp characteristics, than the
ART, if at all to almost make up for a sweetness of the (failed) ART.

Talking a pin-drop within a resonant crystal goblet, strangely, that
just doesn't seem to do, at least in my speaker-amp pairings,
switching pairs for rotational A-B listening between direct Alesis
studio monitors, nearfields, and Polk Studio Reference Series. All 5
and 6.5" main drivers, premium silk dome tweeters, and Alesis West-,
ported bass engineering vrs an East-Coast 10" passive implementation
of a bass radiator, in the back of the Polks. Six, three each, mid
and high active drivers. The Polks and a vintage Carver, perhaps
because it's an integrated amp, in any event, utterly lacking what the
Crown, or the ART provide, both requiring a pre-amp, and a consequent
reaction present from a pseudo-preamp placement, from an actual mixer
unit driving the tube buffering stage.

I've worked with minimum wattage, up to 20 watts. Next is 50-80
watts, to me a comfortable level and approximation for live relevance,
extensible to 150watts, where the amp driving the Polks clips, where,
at spurious peaks for exceeds its 180watt rating. Not sure and may
not be for awhile, hybrid bi-amping SS and tube, as it were, as the
Alesis are rated between 120 and 200 watts, whereas the Crown's
wattage exceeds them by 150 watts;- Class D reserves, at 350 watts,
being a critical reception of power reserves lacking the punch from a
similarly rated A/B, at least in one review, for a practical
depreciation of listening levels closer to 125 watts.

At least I can try and disprove that opinion, although it is rather a
bit close to upper constraints for physically blowing out cones from
a pair of widely regarded Alesis monitors.