Crown XLS402A $170 After rebate

[newtitan]

repost from anandtech


I present the Crown XLS402A, a good deal at it's normal $300 price range.

Features:
* Rugged 2U chassis
* Forced-air fan cooling
* Electronically balanced XLR inputs
* Touch-proof binding post and Speakon® outputs
* LEDs to indicate clipping, power and fault conditions
* 570W per channel @ 2 ohm stereo
* 400W per channel @ 4 ohm stereo
* 260W per channel @ 8 ohm stereo
* 800W @ 8 ohm bridged mono
* 3-year, no-fault, fully-transferable guarantee


LINK TO DEAL AND REBATE:

http://www.abesofmaine.com/viewproduct.asp?id=crxls402a&l=Froogle

Rebate:

http://www.abesofmaine.com/rebates/crownrebate.pdf

[|Tch0rT|]

Holy shit man,

That's a sweet deal! I've been thinking of selling my car audio stuff and going home audio (especially since I have a sweet 51" HDTV).

Ryan

[solacedagony]

Any of the pro audio guys have opinions on the amp?

[chad]

Any of the pro audio guys have opinions on the amp?

I'm a bit of a gear snob in that arena so take this as you may.

They would be great for use in the home provided you can isolate them outside the listening area for reasons of fan noise. Live... I would use one to power my horns and that's about it. I would not trust it with a kick drum hammering thru it twice a second for 4 hours and expect uber reliability day in and day out. It's designed for more of the prosumer, weekend warrior type, and is not a mission critical type of amp design as a whole. But for beating a sub up in the house I think it would be more than adequate.

Chad

[solacedagony]

I'd like to add that I just noticed that the rebate goes for their entire LINE of XLSx02 amps, not just the 402... which is why I'm gonna grab a 202 to run my home speakers. :) For $130 after rebate, can't beat that.

[shinjohn]

Hmmm... interesting deal.
I notice that on abes's website, there are two versions of the amp listed:
"A" and "D"

Crown's website only lists power down to 4 ohms stereo and 8 ohms bridged, whereas the abe website lists to 2 ohm stereo and 4 ohm bridged.

Anyone know about "A" vs. "D" and whether the amps can run stable/reliably at 4 ohms bridged?

[yermolovd]

That's a great deal. I need an amp for my home JBL towers which are running off my Pioneer receiver on the piddly amount of watts lol.

And they ship to Canada yay!

[chad]

Hmmm... interesting deal.
I notice that on abes's website, there are two versions of the amp listed:
"A" and "D"

Crown's website only lists power down to 4 ohms stereo and 8 ohms bridged, whereas the abe website lists to 2 ohm stereo and 4 ohm bridged.

Anyone know about "A" vs. "D" and whether the amps can run stable/reliably at 4 ohms bridged?


I would not push my luck at 4 ohms bridged, again, it may be fine in the home but 4 Bridged under "heavy duty" usage.

A and D versions are most likely for voltage selection... Different power transformer or different power supply if it's a switcher. When the CE4000 came out with the PF correction PS the folks overseas were having FITS since we could buy them cheap and sell them overseas. Dealers overseas had to pay more due to tarrifs then we did.

Chad

[MarkZ]

What's interesting about this deal is that nowhere do I see any reference to power rating and number of channels on this pretty detailed webpage. It should be in big bold flashing letters since that's the only damned thing that matters!

[VisionxOrb]

there is like a 1000 page thread over on avsforum using these in HT, lots of happy campers and there lots of fan mods posted to make these quieter.

[thadman]

Could the XLS802D handle 4ohm bridged operation for home use?

[solacedagony]

http://www.crownaudio.com/amp_htm/xlsspec.htm
The specs on their page don't match up. The top table gives 4-8 ohm stereo and 8 ohm bridged mono power specs. The "Load Impedance" heading below says it works from 2-4-8ohm stereo and 4-8 bridged mono. Their "Datasheet" agrees with the top table on only 4-8 stereo and 8 bridged mono. :confused: :confused: :confused:

Edit: Just pulled up the actual manual for the amps and it also says 4-8 stereo and 8 bridged mono. So these aren't 4 ohm bridged mono capable (as per Crown).

[MarkZ]

I still can't figure this out. How many channels on these things? Are these two channels? One channel? Is there a picture we can look at to find out? They don't actually say.

For that shit alone I wouldn't buy it. I don't trust a company that tries to obscure the ACTUAL output power of the amplifier they're selling.

[thadman]

The amps are two channel:D

If I didnt push them hard would 4ohm bridged be acceptable? I cant imagine reaching 2000+ watts on each, and the impedance is unavoidable.

[chad]

It all depends on where the low impedance protection kicks in. I would not do it, it's not the crown we all know and love, it's an MI unit.

If it were an Itech, Macro/Micro Tech. K series, etc I'd say go for it. This amp is far from "tour class"

Chad

[thadman]

MI unit?

[solacedagony]

I ordered one of the 202s because they're so cheap after rebate.
http://community.webshots.com/album/558036118DVLoQo for pics. I'm sure Chad can comment on the internals. :D

[Tommythecat]

MI is musical instrument, used to refer to equipment (amps, speakers, etc.)

And the "A" and "D" coding is not for voltage, if you knew them at all it denotes the generation. "A" means its the earliest version. You'll see that "B"s pop up on ebay, and "A"s generally go for less. The stores sell "D"s new.

I don't know the power ratings per generation, but it's gone up since "A" or "B" to "D"

[chad]

The reason I "don't know them at all" is because I would not touch them with a 10 foot pole on the road in my apps (especially IF they change the power output per version and the same model number).

As of 3 years ago Crown did not denote the version of the amp on the outside of the chassis, only on the circuit board for the CE series and earlier. This is when I stopped repairing them on a full time basis, I use Crest, QSC, and Lab Gruppen.

Not saying crown does not make a good amp, the K series, Macro Tech, and Itech rock, but they are getting some serious competition from those who jumped on the PWM bandwagon earlier so they seem to be feeding off of the House party/bedroom wanna-be DJ.


Chad

[Tommythecat]

It's cheap stuff, get the fuck over it.

[chad]

No shit dick tracy, hence why I said in an earlier post in this thread that they would be great for home use but I would not push my luck at 4 ohm bridged operation.

I am the fuck over it, I was the fuck over it years ago. I'm just saying at low impedance bridged operation you may have a doorstop on your hands or testing crown's warranty to see if it's really "no fault" (it used to be, should still be)

Chad