Hi Houseofhits, I'm in the process of tri-amping my system with Crown XTi-2's and, odd as it might seem to many (even me), am finding them to be surprisingly good for my audiophile purposes! Of course, I've had to be careful about it. I most definitely could not use the speaker connectors and had to make a hard-wire bypass for them (not too terribly difficult). There just was simply no detail thru the stock connectors. I also already have in place the benefit of around 10 grand's worth of electronic noise reduction (Alan Maher Designs) which goes a long way for system performance in all sonic aspects - amps included. These amps are only fairly flat (don't measure as good as their bigger brothers), yet are proving to me to be excellent all-arounders. But, their main draw for me is that they have a suite of pro tools that include digital time delay, crossover slopes & freq, EQ and gain (replacing a Ton of passive parts, which helps the sound). Thanks to the analog XLR outs, multi-amping requires no additional expenditures, except for wiring...no active crossovers or anything. And if you have a digital source that can also act as a preamp, then you can drive the amps directly (although XLR only). But, I'm enough of a tweak to go ahead and bypass my passive crossovers and hear what my speakers can do, direct drive. This is how I think these amps should be used - not just based on how they perform alone, but on how they can be leveraged toward even better system sound. And besides, I can kiss the whole passive crossover upgrade chase goodbye and that's letting me leverage toward reduced system costs, as well. In my case, my stand speakers (Wavetouch Grand Tetons) are already pretty sensitive at 94dB, so a pair of XTi 1002's are all that's needed for them...after some looking around - $410 each on ebay...brand new! Haven't decided yet on which one for my subs.
I can only think of only 2 possible problems with sonics, and even they are rather slight. The first is timbre - this is not the highest-end 'you-just-want-to-crawl-inside-it, live-there-forever-and-never-leave-to-brave-the-world-again'-level of timbre, but nevertheless it is still very good...good enough for it not be an issue for me. But, I am using all that power conditioning and that may be helping with that part at least somewhat, if only indirectly (that stuff usually helps out more with things like soundstaging, harmonics, bandwidth, color, textures, etc, but not directly so much with timbre).
The other issue is subjective speed. I've owned some relatively inexpensive vintage Luxman gear that seemed slightly slower than these Crowns, but the Crowns seem to do fine on their own. But, for me, the removable horns on the Grand Tetons actually improve system speed, yes, even the sound produced upstream, so for me this no issue at all...and I'm not entirely convinced it otherwise would be for me, really, but I have the horns, so I prefer them.
The XTi-2's are so affordable that you can buy one new, play around with the connectors, if you like, and, if you didn't like it, you could sell it as used for not that much less...(Crazy Moe's usually has them (new) on sale on ebay for about the going rate is used). May even help you assess what a Macrotech might be like, if nothing else. But, I suspect you might find the sound as appealing as I do. Hope this helps.
Regards, John
I can only think of only 2 possible problems with sonics, and even they are rather slight. The first is timbre - this is not the highest-end 'you-just-want-to-crawl-inside-it, live-there-forever-and-never-leave-to-brave-the-world-again'-level of timbre, but nevertheless it is still very good...good enough for it not be an issue for me. But, I am using all that power conditioning and that may be helping with that part at least somewhat, if only indirectly (that stuff usually helps out more with things like soundstaging, harmonics, bandwidth, color, textures, etc, but not directly so much with timbre).
The other issue is subjective speed. I've owned some relatively inexpensive vintage Luxman gear that seemed slightly slower than these Crowns, but the Crowns seem to do fine on their own. But, for me, the removable horns on the Grand Tetons actually improve system speed, yes, even the sound produced upstream, so for me this no issue at all...and I'm not entirely convinced it otherwise would be for me, really, but I have the horns, so I prefer them.
The XTi-2's are so affordable that you can buy one new, play around with the connectors, if you like, and, if you didn't like it, you could sell it as used for not that much less...(Crazy Moe's usually has them (new) on sale on ebay for about the going rate is used). May even help you assess what a Macrotech might be like, if nothing else. But, I suspect you might find the sound as appealing as I do. Hope this helps.
Regards, John