thanks for sharing Andrew. good pics! there's a lot more caps on the behringer than the crown.
in fact, the way the fans and heat sinks on the crown are designed is pretty primitive.
edit:
can you take pics of how the air filter is cleaned/removed?
What the pictures don't make obvious are certain details that are important for consideration.
1) Behringer used mil-spec PC boards (
Two copies of the circuit on two isolated copper layers with each component soldered twice - once to each layer - in case one layer cracks or fails. A real possibility when moving around amplifiers often - as is done with pro amps.) The Crown XLS used standard single trace PCBs as you would expect in a consumer electronics unit.
2) The Behringer uses a far better heat removal method that will efficiently use the moving air to remove maximum heat. The Crown XLS wastes the moving air with their design.
3) The Behringer has the heat sink system NOT supported by the PCB. The Crown XLS has the heat sinks mounted/supported by the PCB. This is extra mass with this leverage attached to the PCB with the PCB as the support will make it far more likely for the PCB to crack if dropped when moved(as pro amps often are).
4) The Behringer has a thicker/strong chassis.
5) The Behringer has superior quality binding posts. The Crown XLS posts are very poor -- they do not have holes big enough to accept 12AWG wire -- and they banana receiver holes are larger than standard size. This means to use banana plugs you have to pry apart the banana plug pieces so that they are big enough to fit snugly in the Crown XLS connectors.
It should be noted that the Crown XLS amplifier here is the 202D, the smallest power unit in the XLS line. So don't judge things like power supply size compared to the Behringer. However, all XLS amplifiers use the same chassis and PCB and circuit design. As you can see, this board is not very populated, it has facility to add more transistors/heat sinks to account for the larger XLS amplifier versions.
The Crown XLS amplifiers perform fine for home use where they are not moved around often - and treated like a consumer electronics product. I also expect they measure very well - I am not aware of Crown being deceitful with specifications in the past. But they do not have nearly the same build quality as the Behringer units. This low power XLS 202D (200x2/8 ohms or 300x2/4 ohms) is about the same price as the Behringer EP2500(450x2/80ms or 650x2/4ohm) and yet you get so much lesser build quality with the Crown.
-Chris
