Crown DriveCore XLS1500 Power Amplifier

I've always been skeptical of pro audio amps for home hi-fi use. The image I've always had of them was something that powered blaring, out of balance monitors at weddings when people sang karaoke. But for some reason I paid attention when someone in an audio forum extolled the virtues of his Crown XLS1500 amps, saying that they sounded no different than the hi-fi audio amps he has owned. My curiosity led me to look at the product page on Amazon, where I saw the sale price which to me seemed insanely low for a stereo amp that put out 300 watts per channel into 8 ohms. Further reading on various audio forums around the internet, as well as professional reviews, convinced me to order one and try it out.It seemed weird to me to have an amp that weighed less than 9 lbs and took up half the space of the amp I was using, which weighed 70+ lbs and put out the same 300 watts per channel. I hooked up the Crown, listened, and... it sounded no different than the amp I had been using. Sound quality was excellent, and it handled dynamics with ease. There are LED warning indicators on the face of the amp. The first green one shows when the amp is receiving a signal; the second green one when it is at 20 db below clipping level; the third when 10 db below clipping, and then there is a red LED to show when it is clipping. I played music at as loud a volume as I would ever listen to it and the second LED never lit up. Loud or soft, the sound was clear and clean and no different from the amp I had been using.I ended up buying four of these altogether, to use in a 5.1 system. Three of the amps are bridged to mono mode and power the left, center and right speakers, and the fourth amp is in stereo mode and powers the two surrounds. What I love is that they sound great yet I can lift all four amps at the same time with ease. All four together weigh about 35 lbs.The drawbacks? Only one - the amps are sort of ugly. I've gotten used to the way they look now, but they definitely do not look as good as the hi-fi amps I was using. The construction quality is not as robust, either but then I don't move them around or abuse them, and they do the job they were intended for, very well. They stay very cool - lukewarm at the warmest. The fan has come on when in use but it is a variable-speed fan and the loudest I have heard it is just a very low whirring sound that I can hear only with my ear right up to the front grill. Otherwise it is inaudible. There is also some hiss from the tweeters when the amp is on with no source playing but that hiss is faint and becomes inaudible about 6-8" from the tweeter. Oh yes - another drawback is the lack of an input for a power trigger so I have to get up and manually turn these on. But then that's no different than what I used to do in the "old days" when I had a turntable.As for the amp being ugly, the newer 1502 model remedies this with an attractive black faceplate but the price is a lot higher, too. I'll settle for the 1500. Excellent performance in a lightweight, compact package. I'm very pleased with these amps.

Nice amp. Looks good and quiet in my home use. It's driving on 18" sub in bridge mode. I am able to clip it using a denon avr 3805 to feed the amp the sub output. Very light, so plugging in rca from the back will move it.

weak.. I have a crown X2000 that sounds great and has plenty of power. I needed and extra amp and i figured this would be fine for a small pa system but it peaks way to easy and sounds like garbage.

This amplifier is 250 watts rms. The 1550 watts is the dynamic power that it will put out for a few seconds if playing a sine wave at full power. It will not play 1550 watts rms continuous. If you look at the back of the amplifier it says 250w near the power supply. That means this amplifier consumes 250 watts. There is no way it would put out over 250 watts continuously (unless for a few seconds) if it only consumes 250 watts. It is impossible for anything to continously to put out more power than it consumes.Not a single person I asked was able to explain how this amplifier can put out 1550 watts continuously if it only consumes 250 watts because it just isn't possible.I even looked at my subwoofer's excursion decrease over time after turning it up. At first I can believe it is really putting out 1550 watts at 4 ohms bridged based on the actual excursion and WinISD's calculated excursion from the power. Then a few seconds of playing at maximum power to where the red clip indicators turned on, the excursion decreased down by atleast half. Based on WinISD it is about 8mm excursion at 1550 watts at around 26hz for my subwoofers. 250 watts brings down my subwoofer excursion to around 3.2mm excursion at 26hz. Based on looking at my subwoofer's excursion and WinISD, I can confirm that this amplifier is 250 watts continuous and 1550 watts dynamic which it will only hold for a few seconds and then quickly drop to 250 watts within seconds if playing at its full power.The power drop probably won't be noticeable for most people unless listening to audio with constant bass notes.Usually you get what you pay for. But with this amplifier, you pay more than the watts you get. For $300 it sounds reasonable for an amplifier to put out 1500 watts continuously. But $300 for an amplifier that only puts out 250 watts continuously is just a rip-off.I remember looking at the picture of the rear of the amplifier before I bought it. I thought that 250w printed near the power plug on the amplifier was a typo or that it was too bad to be true. But it turned out true: this amplifier is only 250 watts rms continuous.I have more proof this amplifier is not 1550 watts continuous. If this amplifier were 1550 watts and 90% efficient then it would consume 1700 watts which is 14 amps of power if the voltage is 120. My computer uses around 3 amps of power. The lights in my room use around 2 amps of power. My reciever is putting out 100 watts total for two 8" mid woofers and and 100 watts to six 3" speakers. If the efficiency is around 75% then my receiver consumes 300 watts or 2.5 amps. The breaker to my room is 15 amps. So drawing 21.5 amps should blow the 15 amp breaker but the breaker never tripped even when turning on all the lights to my room and with the music playing at full power. If this amplifier really was 1550 watts rms then I would know it because the breaker would have tripped.I opened up the amplifier and found only four small output transistors. Output transistors are what put out the power to the speakers. My 20 years old receiver has 8 output transistors that are about twice the size. You can not get high power from a few small output transistors so that is how you know there is no way this amplifier can put out anywhere close to 1500 watts rms continuous.