This weekend's amp showdown recap.:dumbcrazy:
Well, over the weekend we ran both the XLS 802D and the XIT 2000 head to head using both blind testing and listening tests. I had two of my buddies, one who has in own dedicated theater room and the other who is an audio nut. They were both unanimous with the XLS.
The XLS had the best bottom end hands down. The sound was tight and solid and just seemed to have complete control over the woofer. When the amp said stop the woofer just stopped. It also did what us old school car audio guys call “dropping bottom”. In other words, there seemed to be very little if any roll off at the bottom end, and when running REW it seemed to be just about flat to 15hz!
The XIT on the other hand has the COOL DSP but the bottom end was lacking in both output and definition. My wife actually said it best when she said, "the black one just has more oomph.:bigsmile:
I really noticed the difference on kick drums and explosions. In order for it to get low I had to add a shelf filter at 20hz “low as the DSP could go” of 12db per octave. The XTI had bass it was lacking and seem to be just one big boom rather than individual defining booms. I hooked it up to my Maggies just to get a sense of how much power and what kind of sound the XIT had. I was VERY unimpressed. The sound was thin and even the Onkyo seemed to have as much or maybe even more power than the XTI.
Earlier in the week I had the Mackie and it was ok. It was better than the XTI, but to my ears it didn’t come close to the power or sound quality of the XLS.
Matt