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
 
128x128captbeaver
I have 2 of the XLS1500s which are of course the model before these. I thought they sounded good when I first bought them. But after having them for awhile I started to notice how tipped up they are in all freq. If you listen to vocals that you are familiar with you can hear this fairly easily. I really got fatigued after awhile with them and just couldn't  listen any more. My biggest complaint was the high freq. because they would really start to bother me and I'd have to stop listening. I suppose if you have the right speakers or other gear that is on the warm side maybe they would balance everything out. They work great for subs thou or as part of a surround sound system.
From what I understand with my research on the class D side is Crown made some elemental improvements on the new “1500” series. When I get my Aerials in June I will buy another 1502 and give it a good a-b test with the Mc7100 and my trusty 1967 DC-300 which seems to be immortal. The 300 is a fun piece. I really injoy the wisdom here... thank you
captbeaver, I'm currently running my pair of Aerial 7Bs in a surround sound system with the Crown XLS1500. The 7Bs really like the grunt this amp has and they are what I consider a good match. I never had my 7Bs really open up until I put the crown in the mix. 
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
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.