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Crown XLS 1502.... real life test.

I was at guitar center yesterday cruseing the used pedal case and noticed they had the XLS1502 was on sale. With there 45 day return policy, that i have used with great success in the past, i bought the amp.

  With my Logan’s the crown was very clear and full. 525 watts at hand per channel brought the speakers to life. I adjusted the input to around 3 o’clock seemed to be a good match. I went thru a few cd’s and they all sounded great with Steely Dan winning the show...

  I put the Mac back in the loop and noticed the soundstage was a bit bigger and a good amount more subdude.

This was my first foray in the class D world and I was surprised at how good it sounded. At 329.00 its kinda hard to beat. I have no idea what the current measurements are but the XLS made the Logan’s sing. If i read the article correctly, doesnt the JBL Everest’s come with XLS amps? That’s the way it read... please correct me.

Anyway, it was a fun afternoon and the Crown is going back today. I haven’t bought the 10t’s yet... prob June is when I can pick them up... I will buy another crown then to use when I send the 7100 to a mac repair center to get a checkup... I have a gut feeling something is amiss with her. All in all I really enjoyed the XLS and in a blind test i feel it would hold up to many good amps that cost $$$$$.

  I want a 300 watt Mac but at 3-4 thousand dollars that is a big stretch for this retired chef... lol

BTW... the XLS was DEAD silent ... nothing!
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128x128captbeaver
jetter
2,953 posts
 
Hi roxy54, I will be looking forward to your impressions if you purchase the amp.  I am thinking about the 2502, but have never heard a Crown.  Thanks
wolf_garcia
6,613 posts
 
I don't use pro amps in my hifi rig although I own a few and do live sound professionally from time to time (using self powered speakers and subs often). For my listening rig it's a single ended tube amp with relatively low power as I like the tone of that sort of amp. I was reading an article in an audio mag about Magico and one of the pics showed a model of  amp I also own sitting on a rack at their shop…a QSC GX3 300 watt per side class A/B power amp, that you can get for maybe 300 bucks. I use mine generally to drive passive monitors, but it's one of the best sounding PA amps around…the fan is too noisy for my recording space, but for live stuff it's great. 
rcbashaw52's avatar
rcbashaw52
9 posts
 
I purchased a Crown XLS 2000 from a college student who seemed puzzled why he had bought it in the first place. For $100. I thought I’d get to hear a Class D (Crown Class I) amp. Somewhere I read that using the quarter inch line outputs as inputs would give a higher 20k ohm input imp. and be an easier load for some preamps. (The line level inputs are specified at 10 k ohms.)  That proved to be the case.
The sound is very smooth, a bit soft in the highs (mosfet outputs). This suits my taste as an ex tube guy. The Crown sounds almost identical to an aging Hafler D-120 while lacking the vice like grip in the bass of my Bryston 4B NRB (no surprise there)! It’s dead silent with the gain pots set to 12 o’clock and has become my preferred amp. Recommended!
roxy54's avatar
roxy54
7,675 posts
 

Well, I did it. I ordered a Crown XLS 1502 from Amazon today. It won't be here until around May 8th. This will be the first time for Class D in my system and I am very curious to see how it compares to my other amps. Obviously, at its low price I am not going to make a global judgement about all Class D amplifiers based on the way this one sounds.

My main motive is to see what it does for lower efficiency speakers that like power, and of course its overall sound quality. I will report my findings once I have given it a fair try.  

captbeaver's avatar
captbeaver OP
167 posts
 
It will power them fine. I ran the input about 3 o’clock. Plenty of headroom. The odd thing is how light the class D amps are. I’m used to boat anchors that are a pain to move!
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