Early thoughts on Crest CPX 3800

[Rob_H]

Hi all,

 

When I was looking at amps a while back there wasn't a lot of feedback on the Crest CPX series so I said I would share some feedback as I lived with them. It's only been a few weeks, but early impressions are these are very good performers. I am running a pair on a Peavey SPX 118BX/SP3BX combo in stereo with both amps on 8 ohm loads. I haven't run them bridged or on any other loads yet.

 

They sound great and have a ton of headroom; they are rated at 775 RMS/channel @ 8 ohms and seem to be a great match for the speakers at this point. I don't overdrive my gear, my SPL meter is out for repair right now so I can't tell you for sure what I have run them up to but based on experience I would say 120 db or so. I burned the amps/speakers in like normal and only really pushed them hard for about 2 hours so far. One thing that I found very surprising is how cool the amps run, this was all done in my studio so ambient was in the 70 degree range; I haven't felt any heat out of them at all yet, after running them reasonably hard for about 45 minutes they were actually cool to the touch....not saying that means a whole lot (other than they must be an effecient design), just was surprising to me.

 

They are no frills for sure and that suits me just fine, there is only a power LED, signal LED and clip LED per channel. There is no onboard DSP, they do have onboard HPF and a 100 Hz crossover; they are medium weight, not like the old crowns but not like the new lightweights either. My only pet peeves at this point, and it is the same with many amp manufactures products, would it kill them to add 5 cents to the cost and include locking XLR connectors? The second pet peeve again applies to pretty much all manufactures again...can you not design a rear mount that doesn't require ears to tie into the rail or can you include the damn ears in the box? I mean seriously, who runs an amp in this weight class and doesn't anchor the ass end?

 

Again, it is early days with these but so far very impressive, especially considering I picked them up new for well under $600. I will update this every once in a while to let you know if I have any issues or any other feedback. If anyone has any question about them fire away.

 

Rob