Crown amps

Try a Carver Professional ZR1600. At least look up details and reviews about it. It is a digital stereo amp, good for 600 wpc at 4 ohms. Sounds great, especially with Magneplanar speakers (which like lots of power). It caused a buzz in audiophile circles because of its audio quality...not to be expected from a utilitarian pro sound amp. The best part is that it sells for less than a grand.

Undertow mentions a couple of points about pro sound power amps. With regard to the ZR1600....sensitivity is no problem. A jumper plug lets you select any of four sensitivities, 0.316, 0.775, 1.23 and 2.45 vrms. The 0.316 value is for consumer single ended sources, and the 1.25 vrms value is for normal pro sound balanced lines.
The ZR1600 does have a fan. It is said that for home audio use it can be disconnected, but a better approach is to swap it for a very low noise fan that you won't hear even when no music is playing. For single ended RCA input you need only a MONO 1/4 inch phone jack to RCA adapter. (MONO provides the grounding of the (-) balanced input pin). Finally, being a digital amp, it wastes almost no power and runs cold.

Ellery911...Your view of pro sound power amps may be a bit out of date...at least for some of them. Digital has changed things, and a digital pro sound amp sounds about like a digital audiophile amp, some of which are well regarded. In my case I have three CarverPro ZR1600 amps which perform superbly with MG1.6 speakers. Lately I have changed to driving the Maggies with Channel Island D-200 monoblocks, not really because of any sound issue but rather because I wanted monoblocks. (Five of them, one at each multisound speaker location). Truth to tell, the CI D200, which has been well reviewed in audiophile circles, is not noticably better than the ZR1600.

I have no experience with the Crown XTI-2000 but it could be the same story.

Ellery911...And I am not disagreeing with what you say about traditional pro audio power amps. I just suggest that you keep an open mind, particularly with respect to digital amps. Do you think that designers of pro sound amps want them to sound bad? They have access to all the same circuits and components as do high end designers. No reason that they can't sound good. People should listen to them in context of quality home audio speakers and other equipment...not just at a pop concert.

Ellery911...My apology if I seemed to lecture you. I am sure that you have more experience than I with Crown products, but I do suspect that Crown digital amps will have a different character from what they made before. And I think that my suggestion that any comparisons with audiophile amps be done with audiophile speakers is valid.
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Tony....I did a bit of research on the Crown Xti amps, and the findings are interesting.

It performs A/D conversion at the input, and then rather extensive digital signal processing (DSP). Included is a crossover, a four band equalizer, subharmonic synthsizer, delay, limiter, and gain(digital). After that it does a conversion back to analog which drives a conventional linear power amp. The power supply is a switching type, which some audiophiles don't like. (It has obvious advantages for touring bands, as it will work with a wide range of AC input voltages). As best I can tell there is no provision to bypass the DSP and run the power amp directly. I have never heard this Crown amp, and its sound may be excellent.

The CarverPro ZR1600, which I endorse (and own), takes the opposite approach. It also has various less extensive signal processing features, but implemented by analog circuitry. The processed analog signal drives a digital power amplifier. All the signal processing can be bypassed. The power supply is a conventional design. I have heard the ZR1600, and IMHO its sound is excellent.

Two amps, with similar apearance and aimed at the same customers, but quite different in design concept.

Enjoy playing with the DSP, and tell us what you think.

Tony3d...Carver Professional has no relation to Bob Carver, and his designs in the past. The ZR1600 also has muting at turn on and off. See my posting of 12/08 for input sensitivity, fan noise issue, and other considerations.

I didn't mention before but I have a QSC amp that I bought strictly for use as a subwoofer amp. Just for laughs I hooked it up full range to good speakers and took a listen. The joke was on me. It sounded so good that I looked up the specs (which I hadn't paid much attention to) and found that they were in all ways comparable to home audio amps. The QSC does have a fan which makes it too noisy to use in the listening room (my amps are in the cellar) and it is not digital so it gets hot and needs the fan.

As the saying goes..."Don't judge a book by its cover".