This is a review and detailed measurements of the Crown XTi 4002 DSP stereo professional amplifier. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $1,345.
The design wants to look fancy and it kind of gets there with those vents. The segmented LCD and menu navigation is serviceable but the amplifier is really designed to be configured and managed using JB HiQnet software. There are no network connections so you use USB for that purpose:
Yes, the sample is pretty beat up physically but what makes these amplifiers "professional" is to take that kind of use and keep going. I like that standard binding posts are provided in addition to SpeakOn. The former is more likely to be usable in a home hi-fi scenario.
I was pleased to see multiple settings for the fan. Alas, as you see later, even at lower power usage the fan comes up and makes fair bit of racket. This is aggravated by major whining from internal transformer(s) when pushed to max power. So really not that usable in a standard hi-fi cabinet.
Note: our company, Madrona Digital is a dealer for Harman products and we are a heavy customer of Crown Amplifiers (for custom installs, not consumer). So feel free to read any level of bias into my subjective remarks.
If you are new to my testing, please watch this video on understanding amplifier measurements.
Crown XTi4002 Amplifier Measurements
I usually post the warm up at the end of the review but it is an interesting graph so let's look at it first:
I usually see amplifiers stabilize after a few minutes but the 4002 kept improving so I let it run for some 18 minutes (1100 second) where performance suddenly worsened. I was wearing headphones so I took them off only to hear pretty annoying whine from the fan going to full power even though total power being produces was just 10 watts. Clearly the amplifier wants to run warmer for optimal performance but priority is given to reliability. To that end, the design should have been optimized for a lower temperature. Fortunately we are talking about just 1 or 2 dBs.
Here is our standard dashboard:
We don't expect a whole lot from pro amps and that is where we are with the 4002:
I should probably create a separate set of graphs for pro amps. Noise performance is not great:
Not good numbers for any kind close in listening like in hi-fi applications.
Frequency response is flat and load independent which is good:
Looks like input is digitized at 48 kHz sampling rate. Distortion is naturally high by consumer amplifier standards:
Crosstalk was just "OK"
These amplifiers are sold almost completely on the basis of how much power they produce. As such, a lot of exaggeration goes on when it comes to that. Let's see how the 4002 does:
Considering that I am using a shared household outlet (12 gauge feed but 15 amp rating) this is impressive amount of power and consistent with company specs more or less.
Switching to 8 ohm load we still get plenty of power:
I then threw the PowerCube at it to see how well it does with both reactive and loads going down to 2 ohm. As if to to say, "come on, give me all you have" the amplifier made all kinds of noises and lit up its red LEDs in protest. But still managed to produce numbers that are just unbelievable:
Yes, the amplifier produced nearly 90 volts out of its speaker terminals (both channels driven). And didn't care one bit what load I fed it! To put this in context, this is how much power we have:
Stunning! Note that the measurement only lasts long enough for the analyzer to capture it so likely less than a second. But still, the amplifier robustly fought the difficult load and peaked to nearly 8 kilowatts at 2 ohm load!!! It never went into any kind of protection and just ran.
Varying frequencies doesn't seem to change the response much:
Finally, you are likely going to hear the amplifier powering down:
Conclusions
By consumer hi-fi standards, the noise and distortion is quite high. That is not the target of this amplifier class though. It is meant to produce a lot of power and do it day in and day out. And provide in-built DSP to handle jobs like crossover, delay, etc. To that end, the XTi 4002 delivers on its promise in an impressively way -- better than any amplifier I have tested to date. Even using 15/20 amp rated 120 volt supply we have in US, we get copious amount of power.
Noise is a major issue for home use though so only proper application is in a remote location or at least locked up in a cabinet.
I am going to recommend the Crown XTi4002 based on its intended market, or home use for driving subwoofers and such.
----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The design wants to look fancy and it kind of gets there with those vents. The segmented LCD and menu navigation is serviceable but the amplifier is really designed to be configured and managed using JB HiQnet software. There are no network connections so you use USB for that purpose:
Yes, the sample is pretty beat up physically but what makes these amplifiers "professional" is to take that kind of use and keep going. I like that standard binding posts are provided in addition to SpeakOn. The former is more likely to be usable in a home hi-fi scenario.
I was pleased to see multiple settings for the fan. Alas, as you see later, even at lower power usage the fan comes up and makes fair bit of racket. This is aggravated by major whining from internal transformer(s) when pushed to max power. So really not that usable in a standard hi-fi cabinet.
Note: our company, Madrona Digital is a dealer for Harman products and we are a heavy customer of Crown Amplifiers (for custom installs, not consumer). So feel free to read any level of bias into my subjective remarks.
If you are new to my testing, please watch this video on understanding amplifier measurements.
Crown XTi4002 Amplifier Measurements
I usually post the warm up at the end of the review but it is an interesting graph so let's look at it first:
I usually see amplifiers stabilize after a few minutes but the 4002 kept improving so I let it run for some 18 minutes (1100 second) where performance suddenly worsened. I was wearing headphones so I took them off only to hear pretty annoying whine from the fan going to full power even though total power being produces was just 10 watts. Clearly the amplifier wants to run warmer for optimal performance but priority is given to reliability. To that end, the design should have been optimized for a lower temperature. Fortunately we are talking about just 1 or 2 dBs.
Here is our standard dashboard:
We don't expect a whole lot from pro amps and that is where we are with the 4002:
I should probably create a separate set of graphs for pro amps. Noise performance is not great:
Not good numbers for any kind close in listening like in hi-fi applications.
Frequency response is flat and load independent which is good:
Looks like input is digitized at 48 kHz sampling rate. Distortion is naturally high by consumer amplifier standards:
Crosstalk was just "OK"
These amplifiers are sold almost completely on the basis of how much power they produce. As such, a lot of exaggeration goes on when it comes to that. Let's see how the 4002 does:
Considering that I am using a shared household outlet (12 gauge feed but 15 amp rating) this is impressive amount of power and consistent with company specs more or less.
Switching to 8 ohm load we still get plenty of power:
I then threw the PowerCube at it to see how well it does with both reactive and loads going down to 2 ohm. As if to to say, "come on, give me all you have" the amplifier made all kinds of noises and lit up its red LEDs in protest. But still managed to produce numbers that are just unbelievable:
Yes, the amplifier produced nearly 90 volts out of its speaker terminals (both channels driven). And didn't care one bit what load I fed it! To put this in context, this is how much power we have:
Stunning! Note that the measurement only lasts long enough for the analyzer to capture it so likely less than a second. But still, the amplifier robustly fought the difficult load and peaked to nearly 8 kilowatts at 2 ohm load!!! It never went into any kind of protection and just ran.
Varying frequencies doesn't seem to change the response much:
Finally, you are likely going to hear the amplifier powering down:
Conclusions
By consumer hi-fi standards, the noise and distortion is quite high. That is not the target of this amplifier class though. It is meant to produce a lot of power and do it day in and day out. And provide in-built DSP to handle jobs like crossover, delay, etc. To that end, the XTi 4002 delivers on its promise in an impressively way -- better than any amplifier I have tested to date. Even using 15/20 amp rated 120 volt supply we have in US, we get copious amount of power.
Noise is a major issue for home use though so only proper application is in a remote location or at least locked up in a cabinet.
I am going to recommend the Crown XTi4002 based on its intended market, or home use for driving subwoofers and such.
----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
