erik_squires,
If you're still following this, do you know by chance what type of class D module this amp is based on?
If you're still following this, do you know by chance what type of class D module this amp is based on?
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 $$$$$.
I want a 300 watt Mac but at 3-4 thousand dollars that is a big stretch for this retired chef... lol
BTW... the XLS was DEAD silent ... nothing!
6f46e9d1 45ca 46fd 8370 73d2abece53b
With my Logan’s the crown was very clear and full. 525 watts at hand per channel brought the speakers to life. I adjusted the input to around 3 o’clock seemed to be a good match. I went thru a few cd’s and they all sounded great with Steely Dan winning the show...
I put the Mac back in the loop and noticed the soundstage was a bit bigger and a good amount more subdude.
This was my first foray in the class D world and I was surprised at how good it sounded. At 329.00 its kinda hard to beat. I have no idea what the current measurements are but the XLS made the Logan’s sing. If i read the article correctly, doesnt the JBL Everest’s come with XLS amps? That’s the way it read... please correct me.
Anyway, it was a fun afternoon and the Crown is going back today. I haven’t bought the 10t’s yet... prob June is when I can pick them up... I will buy another crown then to use when I send the 7100 to a mac repair center to get a checkup... I have a gut feeling something is amiss with her. All in all I really enjoyed the XLS and in a blind test i feel it would hold up to many good amps that cost $$$$$.
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!
6f46e9d1 45ca 46fd 8370 73d2abece53b
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- 53 posts total
Hey @roxy54 The Crown amplifiers use their own DriveCore technology. They call it Class I or BCA (Balanced Current Amplifier) https://www.crownaudio.com/en/technology Without seeing the schematics or at least a block diagram it is very difficult to tell how different it is from traditional Class D which have at least a few common modules. So far all I read is "patents, yada yada, proprietary design yada yada..." I will say this, based on the pictures, they sure do look extremely light and small even when compared to Class D designs. Best, E |
Besides the usual suspects, there are a couple of companies who have taken on some sort of hybrid approach, in some cases closely resembling earlier work by Bob Carver. NuForce, Yamaha’s EEEngin and NAD which uses a curiously unusual hybrid designed by Hypex. The last is unusual in that all the other amplifiers I know of from Hypex are pure Class D designs. For Bruno to put together something like that for NAD is a fairly rare and obscure thing. I believe that, like Carver, they rely on Class D to move the voltage railes, and put a relatively small Class-A amplifier between them. This combination has relatively very high efficiency (compared to Class A), small size. On the other hand, things are much more comlpicated, and it is unclear to me that the little Class-A section in the middle can perform much better than the rails. I will say I’ve grown quite fond of my NAD 3020D though. :) Also, NAD uses a variety of approaches to their Class D amps, relying on nCore for HT amps for instance, so I'm not making blanket claims for NAD here. Best, E |
@erik_squires Drivecore and Class I aren't necessarily the same thing. I believe the Class I amps have integrated some of the Drivecore tech, but not all Drivecore are 'Class I'. The MacroTech i series and iTech series are the 'Class I' amps, the others are just Drivecore Class D, except for the XLI series, which is class AB. I may be leaving a few out because Crown has over a dozen different lines of amps aimed at different use cases (cinema, touring/live sound, commercial installed sound, studio mixing, etc) and many variations with different I/O options and varying levels of DSP capability. |
So I found a white paper on Class-I. It seems, simply, like a balanced Class D. http://educypedia.karadimov.info/library/137234.pdf What I cannot find anything about is what exactly "DriveCore" is. Maybe this includes the reactive power handling circuitry? Hard to tell without actual patent numbers. Best, E |
- 53 posts total