Crown amps

Well in general they will not be as sweet on mids and highs.. Bass is fine.. Main problem with most pro designs are they run loud and hot… They have fans that make a ton of noise if your actually listening to a home stereo, and normally unless you have balanced connections on your other equipment, lots of conversion adaptors/cables etc.. Just to hook them up, also remember some pro audio gear will not get full gain from all consumer products, so sometimes you gotta add one of those voltage convertor deals that will take your 1.5 volt consumer preamp or receiver and up it to 4 volt into the amp to get full output. It can be done, and some pro amps can match up just fine with all these parameters, but make sure is all, and again no matter what you will not get standard RCA jacks on them.

Sorry I just saw you have a crown preamp… Look at Fanless crown designs like the K series maybe?

Well I am assuming it is the same amp as a CE series which I owned, but XTI has all the processing stuff built in which will also tax the power supply of this amp.. I am not sure exactly of the models so I am going of memory, but the CE is not a very stellar amp for home accept subwoofers and even when I used it for that it was Very noisey with the fans.

Tony3d, well you did ask the question, so in all honesty the answers are there, but you decide to disagree.. This is fine, your mind is made up, but remember you went on a criticle audio site. Yes the old macro series as stated above I believe was reviewed as one of the best if you had to get into more audiophile world stuff, However it still ran super hot, and sucked juice that would cost a lot more money on the electric bill than some of the newer true home audio designs.. This is your choice.

I had the CE crown, and have used a few others.. Fan noise and absolute liquid sound and balance will not be obtained from a pro amp, that is all.. If you enjoy it for the money than that will be great.. I suggest looking at the QSC brand, they are better and WAY WAY cheaper pro amps for home audiophile use from my understanding.. You can probably get an equal online to what you are looking at for 3 to 400 and really clean your hands of having too much invested.. They might even make a model with all the processor capabilities of the crown you are looking at, I assume you really want the equalizer etc.. built in and that is why the crown XTI is important to your config it seems... Regardless of what a HUGE Theater at disney powered by crown and 10 to 20 times the amount of speakers involved, this is VERY different from the close quarter distortion levels you would obtain from a home environment 2 channel stereo, try it, and see how you like it, but I strongly suggest the QSC route as they are suppose to in general be quiter, cheaper, and run a bit cooler. Good Luck

12-12-06: Whoaru99, & Tony3d..
#1 The K2 is a world of a different amp, and it is AWESOME, due to no FAN, Big Power, Very little power draw, ZERO heat, and it is very liquid smooth and compact... This is nothing Like the Other Crown we are talking about which if you note above the K series was mentioned by me as being a better choice, however the Carver z series is very similar I believe but still has a Fan..