Phoenix Gold Phorum

Take a look at the photos and post your thoughts…

Define "better"?

if you are bridging it, i like the ti500.4. if it is being run 4 channel stereo i like the xenon

Well, the reason I posted these photos is I have always been a fan of the ZX450, and now I think it has been clearly beaten. The Xenon is far more amp than the ZX450 is, and they have similar power output (something I need to verify to be sure).

The Xenon offers twice the output devices, set screw terminals on the speakers, a much larger heat sink, with a better fan design, and is physically not much larger than the ZX450.

I have a ZX450 at the moment, so if anyone wants any comparison photos, let me know.

As for the Ti500.4 I don’t even group that with these. The Ti line has next to no headroom compared to the ZX line, so I have not been too keen on them. And I can’t say I like the whole one screw to hold the board in concept on the Ti amps either.

Are the ZX475ti the same as the ZX450, or more closely to the ti500.4? Did they do anything but change the name on them when going from ZXti to ti?

ZX475Ti is the same as a Ti500.4, except for some silk screening.

Eric D wrote:As for the Ti500.4 I don’t even group that with these. The Ti line has next to no headroom compared to the ZX line, so I have not been too keen on them. And I can’t say I like the whole one screw to hold the board in concept on the Ti amps either.

Interesting. I never knew that. I 'upgraded' from a Zx450 to Zx475ti when teh titatinum series first came out because PG reps on the old soundoff board had me convinced it would have a little more output. I figure since I was running my whole system off it (2 seperates & 2 subs) that I needed all the output I could use. Personally I never could tell or hear a difference. The bigest difference I noticed was the cheaper knobs, the lack of gold on the circuit board, and a lighter wallet. I should have kept the mint ZX450v2 that I had.

It's quite unfortunate that the Xenon line got the rep it did. Because, as you say, it is an incredibly nice piece of work. The ZX450's and Ti500's have a soft spot in my heart, but given the opportunity/budget I would love to have a Xenon 200.4... especially for the load optimization circuit. Ti's need to be loaded down to 2 ohms in order to extract all of the power, whereas the Xenons offer it all regardless of impedance.

Of course the Xenon is not too far off of this monster either, in terms of power handling. If you consider cost, the Xenon is still well ahead.

How do the spec sheets for the Sanken transistors compare to the Toshiba transistors?

To my knowledge, Sanken devices are far superior. They are commonly used in many high end home products as well.

Take a look at this photo below of a X200.4. The big reason I started this thread is to point out how much of an underdog the X100.4 really is. The X200.4 is rated at twice the power of the X100.4, yet does it have twice the parts to meet that claim? Either the X200.4 is highly underbuilt, or the X100.4 is highly overbuild. My guess is a bit of both. A ZX450 will do 150W x 4, yet due to Xe.load, a X100.4 will only do 100W x 4, but the X100.4 has even more parts than a ZX450. Pretty impressive stuff if you ask me.

Sanken are a cleaner device in terms of audio usage.