Crown XLi3500 Two-channel, 2700-Watt Bridged 8Ω Power Amplifier. Professional DJ, PA, Stage Amp. Black

This amp is a very good deal for the price in my application. I am utilizing this amp as a power amplifier to drive a pair of really current hungry Magnepan 1.4 speakers. I recently purchased a pair of used Magnepan 1.4 speakers for $250. These are rated at 5 ohm impedance, which is getting on the low end for most general purpose home audio equipment. My current system was being driven by a Marantz SR 7007 receiver which can deliver 125 watts into 8 ohms and up to 195 w into 6 ohms. But it is not rated for the 5 ohm load I'm looking at driving. So, it didn't seem the power supply on the built in power amplifier would be sufficient to meet the current demands if I wanted to turn the volume up and really test out these speakers. I.e., the low resistance speakers would pull more current than the power supply in the receiver could reasonably deliver at higher volumes or peaks which could potentially damage the amplifier or cause it to overheat. So, I have been looking around for a good power amplifier which was rated down to 4 ohms or less to ensure I would never have any problems. Unfortunately, when you get into home audio amplifiers with this kind of power supply, you really are going to have to pay quite a premium on the amplifier. While, I think these speakers could have benefited from the current that could come from a high end audiophile amplifier and the more sophisticated amplifier design, I just was not looking to spend $1,000++++ to get that kind of power. Enter the Crown amplifier. I had a friend who does the audiophile hobby on a budget recommend the Crown amps as a good bang for the buck. After spending a week reviewing them and really looking around, I though it was a good investment to at least try this amp out for my needs.... especially using Amazon as I could easily just send it back if I wasn't fully satisfied. So, what could it hurt? I ordered the amplifier Sunday and with free Prime two day shipping, I received it Tuesday. I hooked this right up to the pre-outs on my Marantz receiver and set the gain on the Crown to maximum output after I tested it low outputs on the receiver and power amp to check for any obvious issues (I'll explain why I turned the gain all the way up on the Crown in a second) and then turned the volume up on the Marantz.... it sounded great! Just very clean sound. I then did a few quick tweaks on subwoofer crossovers and got a full range signal going to the Magnepans for the first time. I would wager that the sound and detail on this low budget system would beat out systems costing MANY times what I've invested. Now, I have learned a few lessons through this process that I'll try to summarize so that others can learn quicker than I did. 1. You need to take some time to really check and know what the pre-amp output is coming from the device you will be feeding into the Crown power amplifier. The Crown has a switch to allow its sensitivity to be set to 1.4 v or 0.775 v. 1.4 volts is really mostly a characteristic of pro gear. The 0.775v is more representative of home audio equipment. My Marantz puts out 0.4 v therefore the setting of 0.775 v is great for my application (the difference between 0.4 v and 0.775 isn't too large and can be compensated for by getting a higher wattage rated amplifier). But why is this important? The pre-amp signal is sent as a variable voltage with a maximum voltage that the preamp circuit can reasonably produce without clipping. If you push the volume on your preamp too high and ask it to send a signal in excess of the capabilities of the pre-amp circuit you will get a lot of distortion and clipping of the signal which is a very quick way to kill your equipment. You want to avoid this at all costs. If the pre-amp signal going to the power amplifier is much higher than the power amplifier's sensitivity rating, you can be asking the power amplifier to amplify this signal too much and exceed the power rating of the power amp and get signal clipping if you turn the volume too high. So, you really want to understand this mating and get it reasonably close. If you get it way too low, you will never get the full output that the power amplifier is capable of even when all the gains are set to maximum on the power amp and the pre amp. This would be okay if you select an amplifier that is oversized for what you really need for your speakers. So, my application falls into this category. My receiver only puts out 0.4 v and I have the power amp set to 0.775 v. My speakers are rated up to 200 w RMS I believe. So, I really don't want to be sending around 400w into my speakers anyways, which is probably in the ballpark for what the Crown XLi1500 puts out into a 5 ohm load. Speaking to Crown technical support, I should still reasonably get up close to 300 w into these speakers with my set up.... which is PLENTY of power. In general, you want to consider purchasing an amplifier which is rated a bit higher than your application anyways so that you always have power reserves in the amplifier when operating to avoid clipping (and just don't go crazy with turning the volume up too high). This helps ensure you have a clean sound and plenty of headroom to not damage your amp. BUT the Crown has separate gain dials which you will likely want to turn down if the amplifier is likely to send a lot higher power into your speakers than the rating of your speakers so that you don't blow those either. Basically, you want to set the gain on the power amplifier for your needs and never touch the gain again. (many installers even lock these knobs or take them off completely so that the end user can't adjust them and damage their equipment). All of your volume control should be coming from the pre-amplifier circuit by adjusting the voltage on this signal. In my case this is the volume knob on the Marantz receiver. As I noted above, I have turned the gain all the way up on the Crown for my application as this allows me to get up to the 200-300w range for peak signals.... which is going to allow me to really maximize what these speakers are capable of without having to really stress the pre-amp circuit in my receiver and cause clipping. You want to have a nice balanced output on both outputs so no single piece of equipment is overstressed and asked to operate outside of its recommended range. So, if you keep these basic concepts in mind and do a bit of research for your application upfront, I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the results. Happy hunting!!! Uodate: I have actually revised a bit of what I stated above. I have turned the gain down to about the 2 o'clock position on this amp to try to keep the RMS power loading closer to the rating of the speakers. The amp still has plenty of ability to send higher power to these speakers at peak loads.... I think. Either way, I have other speakers in my 7.2 system running off the power amp section of the MARANTZ. utilizing the built in Audacity room calibration with the power amp at these levels really seems to give a nice balance between the gain settings at the preamp in the MARANTZ and the output from the MARANTZ and the Crown. So, I now have plenty of power going to the Magnepans and has a nice balance with the klipsch speakers being powered off the MARANTZ. Overall, just a great product! UPDATE: So, the original Crown amp is still going strong to power my front Magnepan speakers. I literally have zero complaints about this amplifier for the price. Just to prove why, I just bought a second one to power a pair of outdoor speakers that are installed in the ceiling of my new screened in porch. Works amazingly well there. I only need to turn this amp to about the 12 oclock position to get more than ample volume out of these Elac in ceiling speakers. They sound phenomenal.

This amp flat out makes me happy. It didn't cost an arm and leg, but it sure delivers the goods. As you can see in the photo, I've used an older AV receiver as a pre amp, and an eq to dial in my vinyl and cut any boomy bass when it decides to show up. As for speakers I have a pair of newly acquired 8 ohm 350 watt monsters with 15 inch woofers. I had a vintage 125 wpc consumer amp before the Crown. It sounded good, but it just needed some more kick. I knew something was missing. I'm not a rich guy, so I try to stretch a dollar as far as I can...I just couldn't get all crazy with expensive amplifiers. After much research, I pulled the trigger on the Xli 1500. I picked it up as a used ( like new) option and saved quite a bit. I literally cannot find anything wrong with it! It came out the original packaging with all the swag...it has full warranty so I'm not going to sweat it one bit. It hit my door for under $225...once I hooked it up I realized it was worth every penny. Speakers just came to life big-time! Bass is kicking mids and highs are on point. It was absolutely the right choice for my situation. The sound quality was so much better, I was stunned. I read about fan noise concerns...I cannot hear the fan at all...even when I turn it down and try to hear it. I'm an airbrush artist and my system is right next to me, within reach, all day. I like to sit and paint and be able to put on an album or adjust the tone ect. without getting up. I hear no fans, I hear absolutely no hiss, it's never even gotten warm. Ive played it all day every day for a couple of weeks now. Absolutely no regrets or concerns. I play every type of music...Rock, metal, reggae, rap, new wave, classical, some county, anything really. I'm able to dial in a good sound in all styles be it at low volume, and get things absolutely bumping when the mood strikes. Plenty of power guys!! It all sounds awesome...you don't have to spend a million bucks to have a powerful, great sounding system...(but you can If you want to I suppose). Crown amplifiers have a new customer for life...give them a try!

Surprisingly heavy, given than many current power amps are featherweight class D designs. This amp owes most of its gravitas to an oversized toroidal transformer. The binding posts are not great, and do not easily allow spade terminals. The inputs however are comprehensive and have both RCA and balanced XLRs. As mentioned elsewhere, the dummy blank plastic plugs inside the banana-sockets can be easily removed by tapping a screw into the center hole, and after the screw has bitten into the plastic, simply pulled out. I tried using both the speaker binding posts and the speakon outputs (after connecting my speaker cable to a high quality binding post-to-Speakon connectors). The Speakon outputs are not only considerably lower in volume, but sound worse than the binding post outputs. Through the Speakons the sound lost clarity and drive with dynamics and bass precision being quite dramatically downgraded. Once hooked up you have to choose the input sensitivity....for me the 0.75V gave a better range of gain. Although there is a switch that allows bridged monoblock operation, I did not try it since the existing 400+ wpc is way more than sufficient. The amp sounds great....lots of upper end clarity and crispness, natural midrange and deep punchy tight bass. There is never any signs of running out of steam, even at the highest listening levels. Out if the box, the soundstage was vague and ill-defined- which improved dramatically after about 2 days running in. For the price, you will be very hard pressed to find any amp that is better all round. Yes, $10,000 amps are more tactile and layered- but you need to spend an extra $9500 to get there.

To establish a perspective for my comments, I am a snobby two channel audiophile, you know the vinyl and tube electronics type. So, this is how I got sucked in......with Harmon group offering a warranty extension to 6 years, I couldn't resist as an upgrade to a surround system. Upon delivery, (had to meet the UPS guy for signature required) I pulled each amp out of the factory packing (not really designed for shipping - explain below). Hooked them up in a two channel system I am familiar with consisting of Craiglist salvaged and rebuilt speakers, tube preamp, tube USB DAC and good cables. I started with the craiglist speakers just in case the amp blew up and tried taking my speakers with it. Set the input for the 1.4v level, stereo mode, and fired it up. These China amps sound pretty good, again -especially for the sub $300 price point. No lack of power when compared to vintage 200w/ch Dynaco 400 power amp. If used to drive a subwoofer, they may be hard to top for even 10x the $. The bass has good authority and punch, the mids, well they're ok but not tube sweet, same with the highs, ok but it would take 10x the $, or more, to make a significant improvement. You won't get spit on your face listening to these amps as you may imagine happens if you were sitting in front of some Wilson audio speakers and $30,000+ in Levinson electronics driving the presentation....but that's ok. Now, believe it or not, there seemed to be some break in as they seemed to sweeten up a bit over a couple hrs of playing. (design may be ripe for a few component upgrades in the analog signal path -- after the warranty is up naturally) People talk about fan noise, there is none. I suspect you would have to run them at gig levels to get the fan to speed up to the point where it could be heard. The blue power on light on the front panel ......it may require sun glasses in the listening room as it is bright, much more so than the dancing green signal present LEDs, also on the front panel. Now the packing. The boxes were not damaged per say, just a bit of corner rounding here and there. The high density foam inside was fine, but, all three amps have varying degrees of bent chassis material. Luckily the low cost China chassis is painted or powder coated sheet metal and not fancy machined anodized high strength aluminum (that is likely to crack if any magic is performed on it to deal with bending ) Bending was not to the point where the finish was damaged, but you could see the damage. So, through the use of a magic wand, all bends got unbent.....not saying any more. The rack mount ears on the rear of the unit needed some magic as did all three cover plates ...... magic resulted in very acceptable result, even for an audio snob Inside the box was a power cord, a postage stamp sized bag of desiccant, and a users manual.......no warranty card. That said, from the manufacturers standpoint, based on what the interweb shows as what's inside of these, they are likely considered a throw away by Harmon (Crown parent conglomerate) Yup, based on what I see and hear, next time these are on sale, I will buy a few more.

I bought this amp to replace a hand-me-down Crown D75A I was using with a set of KEF Q300's, which I use as monitors in my home studio. I refuse to believe I need to spend a fortune to get a good amp with how far technology has come these days, so I was looking for the best stereo power amp I could find for under $300, keeping in mind that I needed something quiet. This amp is perfect. I can definitely notice a huge improvement over my old D75A right off the bat. This amp sounds much better: it feels like it really gives the music the body and depth I knew it had in it, and does this without coloring the sound. Also, I am running it in stereo mode, and the gain between the two channels is much tighter, so my center image is right down center whereas it used to be a little off to the right. Finally, it's way more power than I could ever need for my Q300's, but I love knowing I have all that clean headroom. I was a little mislead by other reviews I read, which implied that the fans are so quiet you can't ever hear them: they certainly make a noise, but it is a very quiet and low in frequency, and in fact is a rather warm and pleasant feeling hum (unlike the nasty sounding hums of some amps). Significantly though, it is masked by even the quietest content playing on my speakers, so it is no trouble at all for mixing. I will have to turn it off when I am recording, but it's so easy to switch on (doesn't make any pops and instantly delivers the gain you need) so I could just turn it on between takes anyway if I needed. All in all, sufficiently quiet enough for my home studio purposes. Also, worth noting: this seems to be the european version of the amp, judging by the binding posts on the back. From the manual: "Binding posts on European models come with safety plugs installed to prevent European power cords from being inserted. The side entry positions for these connectors should therefore be used for European models". This amazon listing came with safety plugs, and so you have to use the side entry positions (which was a little annoying, because I'd prefer to use banana plugs, but oh well).

Bought a xls1002 many yrs ago and it has worked great. Saw this and it fit perfectly for my needs (speaker testing - i design and build speakers). The 1002 is class D and i assumed the xli800 was too. Nope. It has a big toroid transformer and pushes 25 lbs. no worries, it still works. And it does, quite well i must say. Fans are super quiet, no hum at all even with single end RCA connection to preamp out (from my PC). Clean, clear sound. I checked the response and its flat from 10 to 20,000 Hz. I have no DA so cant verify distortion, but my ears tell me no problem, even at higher levels. For those of you with hum issues, i suggest learning about balanced and unbalanced input. Also, check supply power and make sure ALL equipment is connected to a single grounded source. No offense, but i find most DJs and musicians are not certified electricians - electrical matters require a certain level of skill. (I also build tube amps where grounding is of paramount importance as well as filament supply isolation). Ground loops can be very subtle and difficult to find. Get expert help if you can’t resolve the issue yourself. IMO, of course. ;-)

Has some good weight on it. Very well made stays nice and cool really pushes my home theater system performs really well. Crown just makes one of the best amps. Get an equalizer to go with it so you can separate those highs and lows an you'll be glad u did. Avr's just don't have enough power doesn't matter how much u spend. The key is to get an external amp along with an EQ to push it and u good to go! FYI there on sale right now so what u waiting for, just buy!

This Crown XLI 800 is a top performer in our surround sound system. It is powering two Bic RTR 1530 frontally used speakers. We play a lot of music with the system, and it sounds great. This model is a basic amplifier without a lot of bells and whistles. It simply does what it is supposed to do at a very affordable price, which is just what I want from an amplifier. The XLI 800 is a silent runner with no floor noise or fan noise to be heard. With music playing it delivers with force and clarity. The whole system sounds better, since the receiver now only needs to power the surround and back surround speakers. It is very user friendly. Regular RCA plugs can be used from the receiver pre-outs to the inputs of the Crown. Binding posts offer easy speaker hook up. As others have mentioned, these Crowns do have protective plastic plugs inserted in the binding posts. Apparently, European style power cords could, in error, be connected to them. Instead, Europeans are advised to use the side slots for speaker wire connections. If you live in the United States you can safely remove the protective plugs. I viewed an on line video, which suggests removing the protective plugs using a small threaded screw. I used a sheet rock screw, turning it by hand until the screw threads just engaged the plastic plugs. The amplifier (of course) should not be connected to a power source, should you follow this approach. In my case, they all pulled out really easy. It has a sensitivity switch allowing it to be set at 1.4 volts or 0.775 volts. For most home systems the 0.775 volt setting will be just fine. You should check the rating of the pre outs on the receiver you plan to use. The only thing that worried me was how to set the gain controls. Technical support at Crown told me to simply turn them up to where the sound seemed best, which I did. I started by placing them around the 2 o'clock position and finally wound up leaving the dials at the 3 o'clock position. You do have to work with speaker placement and some receiver adjustments to get the best sound. I turned down the sensitivity of the receiver, as the sound seemed a bit bright. Each type of speaker is different, and you have to use your receiver adjustments, accordingly. It does have a center light on the front, some might find over powering. To remedy the situation, a small square of electrical tape will cover it. The tape matches the black color of the case, perfectly. . If your speakers need some good solid watts per channel, to get them going, you can't go wrong with this Crown. Finally, these Crowns are built to take it. The case is heavy gauge steel. The weight is a hefty 25.1 pounds for this model. Although not trendy looking, the styling is more about quality and something that does not go out of fashion. That is all good. After all, I hear these Crowns last a long time.