I own this amplifier, upon reading the user manual, I knew I'd bought a monster. I also own a set of Peavey Black Widow 2400 118. I can get lows that most can't comprehend simply by setting the hertz to 74-59 and on the fly. Ridiculous.Rich.
I have a Crown XLS 2500, and it's great. I use it to power my bass guitar rig. It drives two Hartke cabs, a 4x10 and a 1x15, so i run it in crossover mode. It's lightweight, loud and clear, with no hiss at all even when dimed. I really like this amp. Highly recommended.
Just got the xls2000 today always had the ce series and got this don’t hear a difference but I could get use to the weight I got it because of the 5 star rating. Good job crown
Video is good but the power supply is essentially the right half of the chassis. What you pointed to is the input power filter that is within the shield area. The little transformer in the right half is the power transformer. It doesn't require the massive hunk of iron because it is operating at a high frequency around 96 KHz. Class D amplifiers are efficient because the switching transistors are either off or full on during their switching cycle. When off, no current flows so no power and heat is generated. When on, the voltage is very low in spite of high current so power and heat are still low. This pulse width modulated waveform is then filtered back to an analog value for the speakers in the two toroid inductors just left of center. Feedback of the resulting output is then fed back into the circuits to keep linear performance.
Wow!. You seem to know your stuff. I say "seem" because I am.completely ignorant of all this. I want to hook up a Crown amp to run my power hungry home stereo speakers. Right now I just have a Sony STRDN1040. It sounds GREAT but just does not bring out the deeper register in the bigger speakers. Is it OK to use this Crown amp to power a home stereo?. I've seen reviews on Amazon that just rave about powering home A/V systems with Crown amps. Big POWER is gained. But what is lost, if anything?.
Wuff zu Wuffenberg My HUGE six driver speakers require and EXTREME amount of power to sound amazing. I think ALL recievers are underpowered to drive speakers(POLK AUDIO rtia9) properly. I had the money so..... I bought TWO Crown DriveCore XLS1502 amps. I have them in bridge mode. This delivers a whopping 1050 watts/channel. I also have a POLK AUDIO 110(??. I think) sub. My speakers are set at crossover of 100Hz with a Marantz 8001 preamp. I have the amps set at .775 input. This is the recommended input for headphones. But my speakers are so "warm" in sound that the "openess" of the NON-recommended .775 input balances out nicely. WOW!!..WOW!..WOW!!!. The sound is incredible. My musician friends (the REAL critics to me) say the sound is expansive and open and beautiful. These CROWN D class amps have come to reign!!. Designed by Harmon Kardon. I have never seen a mixed or poor review for this amp. Old timers like BIG, SWEATY, HEAVY amps. But as this reviewer says "I can't tell a sound quality difference between these two amps." And in fact, many studies have been done with REAL people with REAL ears and they CANNOT tell the differnece from the Class D (Crown) and other older Class A , A/B amps. Now, AUDIOHOLICS(internet reviewers) says CLASS D amps "Arent quite there and wont be for some time or ever." Well, they're putting stuff on the bench and measuring with oscilliscopes and digital NON-listening equipment. The fact is the human ear is a POOR listening tool relative to almost ALL other mammals. And my CROWN DRIVECORE XLS1502 REALLY sound WONDERFUL. I HIGHLY recommend these excellent sounding, efficient, INexpensive amps for home stereo listening.
Thanks, I've still got that Numark amp. Despite it being 10 years old this year, it's still going strong! I use it every now and then to run monitor speakers if I have to work with a band. I'm not sure what class it is if I'm perfectly honest, but it's over engineered and built like a tank! The only reason I don't use it regularly is purely down to the weight.
Nothing against the Crowns. They do make more sense, even for home use. I've seen a few hifi reviews of them and they say the same thing you do - lots of power and nice and clear sound.
Yes, I love the Crowns. I've got three of them now, and all have been perfect. My main concern was reliability when I bought them, as the technology back then was really in its infancy for amps of this size. But now that all three of them are five years old this year, I'm most impressed! Not a spot of bother out of any of them :)
great video looking at one now on amazon for my home stereo, think I might try this or one of their smaller ones 1200 model. thx again excellent review.
Hi, thanks for sharing! I am still sitting on the fence re the active/ passive debate. I have a some nice RCF active kit (310a's, 322a's and 722a's) but can't let go of my passive compact HK Audio rig (210 sub's and 08 tops). I have always been a fan of 'traditional' amps but after seeing reviews of these amps (including yours!), realising that I can have a full bi-amp rack at nearly half the weight of just a single trad amp, I have just ordered a couple of XLS 1500's for my HK gear. I am sure there will be some sonic differences but whilst we are all performing in less than acoustically perfect venues, I am guessing that the sound will be fine. I am just hoping that the reliability is there. Then again, at these weights and prices, I could always just rack a spare amp! Thanks again!
+Buck Williams Thanks. Yes, I've go several of these units now, all over 3 years old... and all have performed perfectly without a hitch. I'm very impressed! I mainly run them off an old diesel generator too, so they don't have the stablest of supply to work off either. The weight saving is phenomenal like you say. I've loaned these out to several 'audiophile' friends of mine.... none of which could really tell the sound difference. At the end of the day, most recorded music is MP3 at 320Kbps. So the differences caused by the amps, I'd imagine, fall into insignificance when compared with the sample rate of the recorded audio.
I'm with SVT Contour. The XLS usher in a new era of lightweight, reliable, affordable, high sound quality amplification. Go back even as little as 10 years and look at what 2000 watts of class A/B or H costs. As far as serviceability the Crown should be more reliable than your Numark since its parts count is less.
pushed my xls1000 as my home subwoofer amplifier into 2 ohms bridged (which is as you should know 1 ohm per channel!) and it pushes the shit out of my DD 3512 and dips the lights on the same circuit lol, i don't go at it for long periods of time like this so the amp is okay, i do have videos of it
"box rise" is a bad term fyi im an electrical engineer the very fact that you have an inductor moving within a magnetic gap causes the impedance to fluctuate with frequency, a non-moving inductor follows a non-real impedance relationship with the formula jwL (w being omega which equals 2*pi*f, L being inductance value in henries, and j making it non-real), and thus the impedance of a real inductor is Z=R+jwL, but the movement of the coil within the gap causes the value of L to fluctuate, the impedance graph of a speaker shows this with a peak in impedance at around Fs in free air, and around resonance of the enclosure that it is in, this is the area of least movement of the diaphragm of the speaker but it is also the most efficient point, generally on subwoofers, outside of the resonance point the impedance sits around and slightly above the DC resistance of the coil itself, since many subs are tuned in the 30Hz range and frequencies are so low, you will see the rated (2ohms etc.) low impedances generally in the ~45Hz and up to cutoff of the low pass filter, my XLS1000 maxes the fan out from heat if i blare music that has those frequencies in consistent bass tones, but i can keep going and going if it has bass in the 30Hz range
Nice review! I don't know if you feel you have a qualified answer for this question but, how would you rate the Crown XLS series amps for high fidelity home stereo use? Some people believe you can't the difference between amps and some say you can, but with the cost of some of these premium amps I want an informed opinion. Thanks.
The Toroidal transformers are actually very efficient, they only get hot because the manufactures cut costs be using under sized winding wire for the power rating. Most of the heat is from the a/b amplifier modules, also losses are considerable in the bridge rectifiers too, which all adds up to poor efficiency. The Class D crown is very efficient as the output transistors are switching on and off not in linear region and a pwm output is then filtered via typically inductors and a caps on speaker output The SMPS power supply is more efficient too as sync rectification is used. But reliability is the big question, also a class d amp with a smps is far far more complex in design, compared to a basic class a/b amplifier, and a lot can go wrong.
Lots of problems with class d, 1. far more complex in design over class a/b. 2. considerable rf switching noise can interfere with other equipment. 3. minimum load requirement 4. noise and distortion is usually higher than a/b, but this in not a problem for PA applications. 5 Amplifiers can beat and make whistling sounds with other class d amps in system.
I tried out a Crown XLS 2000 amp a friend wanted to sell. For $100. I couldn’t go wrong. I was stunned! I’ve done pro sound, ran an audio store, wired many homes for distributed audio, etc.This is a wonderful ampIifier! I own a number of amplifiers both tubed and solid state and this is my favorite. Don’t waste your money on expensive amps, give one of the XLS amps a try. If you own very efficient speakers I would go with (at least) the 1502 as the entry level amp could be a bit too noisy!
I just bought a used Crown XLS 2000 amp. I use it as a standalone amplifier with volume set to max for both left and right channels. It can't even power up loud enough to drive my Wharfedale Evo 4.1 at 87 DB efficiency. It can only achieve about 50% of what my Audiolab 8000 can. Even when i setup my Audiolab as a Pre, i need to up the Volume control knob to 2 o'clock. The usual setting is 9 to 10 o'clock for the speakers to be very loud. Please advise. I suspect this amp is defective and intending to ask for a refund from the seller.
Probably not I'm afraid. If you let me know the model number I can let you know for sure. The integrated amplifier has the Pre-amplifier, Equaliser, etc AND the Power Amplifier built into one unit. Like you say, You'll need to be able to take a 'Line Level' RCA out of the Integrated Amp, and feed into this one. But the Integrated amp will probably not have a Line Level output.
Amigo saludos cordiales.. acabo de adquirir 2 CROWN XLS 1000.. mi duda es si se usan con algún regulador de voltaje.. soy DJ móvil en México y en algunos casos la energía eléctrica es irregular.. puedes darme algúna recomendación.. gracias..
I would say they are very cheap. If you look at the high end class AB alternatives. Its probably about 1/2 the price. I have the XLS 1500 and am happy with it so it is definitely a bargain.
Yes, 4 years on and they still work perfectly! One thing I have noticed is a fault code stored in the memory, when you hold all 3 buttons in for 5 seconds. This appeared when a generator tripped out under overload. Never been able to clear the code though on all 3 amplifiers. But It doesn't affect the running of them - They still sound and work great!
hello, i have a question if you dont mind, would you know how to hook the crown to a integrated amplifier? i would be useing the integrated amp for balance, bass and treble and the crown for POWER!! i dont know if it can be done or if so how to connect them together. i guess the integrated amp would connect to the rca connections on the crown but where would the rca cable go out from the integrated amp??? can this even be done at all??
i have JBL Venue series tower speakers on Denon AVR-2309ci receiver. but i think power is not enough on my left and right tower speakers. what do you recommanded? current amp is 105 at 8 ohm per channel 5.1 system. my sub-woofer has its own amp.
I am in the same situation. I have a Sony STRDN1040 hooked up to one set of POLK MONITOR70IIs and POLK RTIA9s(handle 50-500 watts/each). The sound from this Sony is fantastic-my opinion and pro reviews. I want just want more POWER. Once one steps up in a reciever you get all the bells and whistles and no big increase in power. Maybe COPPER is too expensive for toroidal AB amps?. I just want to run-MAYBE-5.1 AT MOST. I saw reviews on Amazon of audio geeks saying they're using Crown amps to drive their home A/V systems with massive wattage and they love the sound. How this is hooked up I don't know but I'm going to look at Crown amps today to find out. I've heard some off the cuff remarks about ClassD amps loosing some upper register and that they are built for durability NOT sound quality. Maranzt tech told me that and then said "We have a ClassD amp that would be perfect for you as Marantz engineers have removed ALL the negative characteristics of ClassD amps I just mentioned." LOL. I don't know of one other industry-probably cars or medicine-cycling?-that has so much hyperbole and so many enthusiasts who just read numbers and don't actually engage the sensory organ that the product is supposed to stimulate: HEARING in this example. As a musician I laugh and laugh over it. I just had someone on an audio forum try and tell me that air is NOT what creates a sound wave. I didn't have the heart to tell him that if he took his $50K speakers into space and ran them he WON'T hear anything...the cones will be moving but without AIR(or any gas) to transfer the energy he wouldn't HEAR anything. Seems to me that you are onto something hooking up this high wattage/dollar, well running, durable amp. I'm interested in hearing what came of your research. Good Luck and Good Listening. Mike
What do you mean by that ??? I am not aware of a class I amp circuit, and I have been in business for many years. There are class T amps, but they are also class D.
@@kimhansen6384 Class -I amplifiers are a fundamentally different design from all other amplifier classes on the market. Crown has patented the technology behind Class-I amplifiers and is the only manufacturer in the world building this design.
It's a piece of crap! This is a DJ pro low-quality amp, not for home use! DSP is a crappy 16bit 48kHz. Class D amp has a low 200kHz switching frequency. Good for driving a subwoofer not full range speakers. It clips at 2X170W. I've tested it in my home. It sounds like crap playing music in stereo compared to my Yamaha RX-A2070 receiver...
Wow, I'm surprised to hear that it's clipping at that level. What is the impedance of your speakers? I've got 3 of them now, all about 7 years old, and never had a moment's bother out of any of them.
