A Typical Help Thread -- I Have 3 Kids Under Six and No Time to Research!

[RoadRunner6]

My mother used to force me to take cod-liver oil. I hated it but I know it was good for me. Take this courtesy of Grapenuts at the Emo forum:



FINALLY!
Hey guys,
First off let me apologize for not getting this review into your hands earlier. I've had my hands full and really wanted to listen to the amp in my media room for a good amount of time before I passed judgment. I wanted to let the initial excitement fade and let the amp present itself to me in a more objective way.
Enjoy!

Prelude:
I have perused my share of amp and other equipment reviews in my time. I read them from all major forms of publications, and like you, do my best to discern what will sound good in my listening room and what won’t. Most of this is of course, feudal, as the reviewer’s room has its own quirks, and there are a plethora of variables that impact the sound traveling from his speakers to his ears. By that token, his ears aren’t your ears and right there is a very large variable indeed. Take into account that and the sonic impact of anything from room dimensions, room shape, acoustic treatments, speaker type, source type, cable type, even power cord types make on a listening experience, and we can easily come to the conclusion that no review is going to be the end all be all of reviews for any given piece of equipment. Especially when it comes time to decide what should be included in your space. I’m not a professional reviewer. I don’t get paid a kings ransom to say one piece is better than the other, and that you simply must have this piece or your system is just not complete. I’m you. I’m the guy who’s spent an ungodly amount of time, effort, planning, wiring and re-wiring, placing and replacing equipment, and of course spending an unmentionable amount of cash on their system. At the end of the day, I want my system to push the boundaries of sonic nirvana and I’m willing to do whatever I can to get there within my budget (I use that term loosely of course!). I’ve upgraded and then upgraded the upgrades. This is something I’m almost certain most of you reading this can relate to. Over the years I’ve developed Doctorate level skills in the art of negotiations with the significant others in my life (although I finally caved in and married two years ago so there will be no more significant others) and if they gave out honorary ones, I’d be up for selection. This is a skill you yourself have no doubt mastered because this hobby demands it. So while reading this review, sit back and know that I’m just the next guy who enjoys this wonderful obsession. It won’t be structured like the typical review because I want this to be as easily understood and realistic as possible. I want it in terms that make sense and in a way that you can imagine the amp in your space. Like I said, I’m just like you. We just want good sound at a great price.

The Arrival:
Over the past few months, I’ve had the FedEx and UPS drivers act anything but pleasant with me. If any of you are reading this, I have this to offer; I know that the ad read that you have to be able to lift at least 75 lbs, but once in a while you have to be able to heft a bit more. Look at it this way; I’m keeping you all very busy, and thereby increasing your job security…your welcome. Now typically the drivers come in lugging my stereo equipment in awkwardly, cursing under their breath and shoving the little “sign here” device in my face. It doesn’t help that I’m sitting there smiling like a 12 year old at Christmas when I see what they are bringing me. The key here is that they are usually carrying (if it can be called that) the equipment to me. Lately that has included some heavy hitters including some back breakers like two Classe CA-201s, an XPA-5, some infinity Beta Speakers I sold, and some ridiculously huge Martin Logans. So when I saw the office door open and a dolly rolled in carrying the XPA-2 followed by the ever smirking FedEx guy, I was a bit perplexed. “Not feeling well today?” I asked him with the larger than usual 12 yr old grin. He simply shoved the notorious device in my face and said something to the effect that this was too damn heavy and for me to have fun picking it up off of the floor to walk out to my Land Rover. Grumbling explicatives as he walked out of my office and into the lobby, I wished him a good day and got back to work with my new toy securely planted to the ground at my feet. When it was quitting time, I realized why he brought it in on a dolly and I began to wish I had one handy. This thing feels like it’s a box of solid lead. For all of you that believe firmly that build quality goes hand in hand with weight, you’ve found your amp. She’s the 500 lb gorilla that jumped off your back and kicked you in the seat of your pants. You might as well be lifting the rear end of your car. So I became the cursing FedEx guy and lugged my new amp into the car and headed home.

Set Up:
After almost killing myself bringing this into my media room, I stole the maple platform from my front sub and placed the XPA-2 onto it and into position to join the Classe’s.
Opting for an aftermarket power cord courtesy of Signal Cable and bi-wire speaker cable from AudioQuest (Type 8) I made all the necessary connections and plugged in my unbalanced BJC ICs to pull signal carrying duty to my Parasound model 2100S Pre amp and then I ran the outputs from the Pre via Kimber Kable Hero and AudioQuest King Cobra ICs to my Marantz SA11-s1 CD player. All that was left to do was crank it up.
Opting for a gradual approach to this review over the “holy crap I just got it and I love it!” review I’ve done in the past (most recently with my Marantz and the XPA-5 from Emotiva), I just turned the power on and then ran cd after cd with the amp to get her properly warmed up. I did this over 48hrs and then began to use it for what it was designed for – Home Theater.


And Away we go:

I’m going to get into the specs of the amp later on in the review, but wanted to say something to the readers looking to purchase this amp for music and were wondering about the monstrous capacitors used in the XPA-2. You may think that with this amp’s ability to store electricity via those capacitors that it would be a little slower on the transient dynamics and the ability of it to keep up with fast instrumentals, but fear not young warrior. The XPA-2 will deliver the goods faster than your wife can tell you to stop spending money on gear. If your source can keep up with the fast pace the cd wants to dish out, this amp is going to stand up to it toe to toe without breaking a sweat. Let me repeat that last very important part for those of you with limited clearance issues; WITHOUT BREAKING A SWEAT. She runs very cool and I was impressed with it’s ability to resist heat. Those concealed heat sinks running down the sides really do work!
Before I began watching my movies, I decided to level match my fronts with the rest of the system since I had swapped amps. To my surprise I had to increase the gains on the other speakers that had previously been level matched to my Classe powered fronts! Now granted it’s most likely due to the gain structure of the amp itself, but it’s still impressive considering I use one Classe for each of my left and right speakers. After listening through a myriad of movies and countless hours of listening to music (which included one session of what could best be described as a battle between the volume knob and my ears ability to take inhuman decibel levels) I would say without question that the XPA-2’s 500WPC into 4 ohm specs err on the side of serious conservatism. How can I be so sure you ask? My Classe’ amps were carrying half the load (one per speaker) and are rated at 400WPC /1200WPC in mono mode, and I don’t remember being able to go that high without distortion. I went high enough with the XPA-2 that I was more worried about my speakers and my hearing than I was about the roll off of frequency response from clipping of the amp.
I put the XPA-2 through it’s paces with the likes of Rambo (with 60yr old Stallone…fantastic movie in my opinion) , Never back down, Gone in sixty seconds, Equilibrium, National treasure 2, Independence Day, U-571, 3:10 to Yuma and many others. The idea here was to test the XPA-2s ability to drive a difficult speaker during very demanding scenes. Rambo has some of the most realistic sounding explosions and impacts that can be had on a soundtrack. U-571 has several high dynamic peaks during the depth charge scene. Gone in sixty seconds has several scenes I wanted to hear; namely the Porche breaking through the glass as it exits the dealership (this can sound harsh with the wrong cable/amp/processor set up) and when Nicolas Cage steals Eleanor. The ensuing chase scenes are musical candy as the GT-500 growls as it speeds away from its pursuers. The XPA-2 does not merely make it through these scenes, but absolutely mocks them. The cover doesn’t so much as get warm even at movie theater SPL levels, and the amp dares the processor to see how much detail it can pull out of the dvd - as it would love to amplify them. It never smeared the soundtrack in order to pull off dynamics. It responded very well to explosions with people running and yelling in the background without ever forgetting to amplify the minute details. I run a very detailed pair of fronts and can easily discern smaller details in movies that are normally left out by lesser speakers. Because of this, I can also easily tell if the amp is able to get the signal across in a way where all the details can be heard in the soundtrack, or if they get muffled. For a sub $1,000 price tag, this amp gets an A for the ability to keep up with highly demanding, dynamic detail and the ability to drive very demanding Speakers through spikes in spl without getting hot. If this amp were two thousand dollars it would still receive an A for its abilities. I won’t get into a ton of comparisons with my reference Classe’s, but I will tell you this; they run warmer than the XPA-2. High bias or not, the Classe’s shouldn’t be as warm in my book, as they are splitting the duties where the XPA was carrying the full load. If you are looking for a Super value among near infinite amount of 2 ch amp choices to power your home theater, place this on your short list. In fact, you may want to forego the list altogether and pull the trigger. Yes Emotiva Audio has a 30 day return policy, but I don’t think you’ll need to use it.
But does the XPA-2 only offer its owner an outstanding home theater experience? Oh no. It would most surely enjoy having you sit down and crank up the volume knob on some of your favorite tunes. I began my musical journey with the XPA-2 driving my Odysseys to the instrumental percussionary bliss of Blue Man Group Audio. Hey, an amp with the ability to drive accurately through dynamic peaks should sound great on this CD right? You know it does. Listening at, well, let’s call them higher-than-reference levels, the XPA does not disappoint. All the normal details were there and were delivered with gobs of power in reserve. Many have called the XPA-2 a beast when describing its power. I would liken it to an abominable snow man on steroids; no one is safe. But how would it fare when dealing with more delicate sounds such as Nora Jones, Dido or Sarah McLaughlin? Musically so. Imaging is spot on and headroom is huge. I was wishing I had two of these bad boys to hook up and see what they could do when used in tandem. I have a feeling that if the upcoming XPA-1 Monoblocks have even more headroom, the Classe’s may start to sweat. There may just be some new reference amps in the listening room in the near future! I did opt for the AudioQuest King Cobras to pair up with the XPA-2 as I thought it had a deeper bass response than the Kimber Heros. I was able to pick out excellent detail with even the subtlest of guitar plucks or piano keys shining through without any harshness or brightness. Cymbals sounded very natural. Note that I did not experience any roll off during my listening of the XPA-2 so feel confident it has the gusto required to drive difficult speakers and will expend little effort driving your highly efficient speakers. If you have detailed speakers and are wondering if the XPA-2 would be too bright I would say that if you pair it with the correct source and a warmer IC you will be very content indeed. This amp will air on the side of transparent and detailed, trumping the detail producing ability of its 5 channel sibling aptly named the XPA-5. I didn’t find it to be warm or bright and found that changing ICs had the impact on sonics and not the amp. And that kids, is exactly what a great amp should be. Transparent. It never gets in the way of the music or created its own signature. I found this to be not only pleasing to the ear, but also represents an outstanding value to find anywhere near this price point. Manufacturers of audio equipment are typically trying very hard to deliver a transparently neutral amp that has excellent specs and a more often than not, you are paying a very high premium when they succeed. Emotiva has created an amp that has transparent qualities - and at a price that should leave a lot of people wondering what the twelve thousand dollar amp has over this one that warrants the mark up. We all know about the law of diminishing returns, but at what price point does that truly happen? Four or Five thousand of your hard earned dollars? Who knows for certain. But one thing is for sure: Lonnie (who spear headed the engineering design of the XPA-2), Dan (the Fearless leader and founder of Emotiva Audio along with his wife Cathy) and the boys and girls over at Emotiva have just Narrowed the gap of where that dollar amount starts with the birth of the XPA-2.
So what will this amp sound like in your room? Transparent. Like it should. It will allow you to make your changes on sonic signature with other things like cables speakers and sources. Those things come and go. A quality amp can stay in your system for years without the need to change it. If you are building a sound system and are looking for an amp to anchor it around, The XPA-2 just might be your ticket to the beginnings of sonic bliss. It offers you the transparent freedom typically reserved for those of us with deep pockets, but at a down to earth price. Times are tough. The economy is going through a difficult time and your dollar doesn’t go as far. You need to be able to save some money. Emotiva just gave you the ability to have an outstanding amp and keep some coin in your pocket. So let me ask you, what’s not to like?



Associated Equipment:
Source: Marantz SA11-S1
Pre amp- Parasound Model 2100S
Speakers- Martin Logan Odysseys
Speaker Cable- AudioQuest Type 8 BiWire
Interconnects- AudioQuest King Cobra
Kimber Hero
Blue Jeans Cable LC-1
Power Cords - Signal Cable


XPA-2 Specs:
Number of channels: 2
Amplifier Class: Short signal path A/B
Output design: Triple Darlington with Toshiba output stages
Differential Drive: Dual Differential input
Types of inputs: Both Balanced (XLR) and Un-balanced (RCA)
Type of outputs: Audiophile quality 5 way binding post
Display type: Digital VU meters
Metering: 14) Blue LEDS and 1) red per channel
Power output: 250 watts RMS/ channel into 8 ohms, 500 watts RMS/ channel into 4 ohms and 1,000 watts RMS bridged.
THD+N at rated power output: 0.007%
S/N ratio: >100db
Frequency response: 10 to 120Khz (-3db) and 20 to 20 (with less than .15db deviation)
Gain structure: 32db
Transformer size: 1600va mounted in a super structure
Secondary capacitance: 120,000uF
Weight: Approximately 75 pounds
Retail price: $799.00
17” W x 7.75” H x 19” D

Now that wasn't too bad, was it?

[blackraven]

I havent had the chance to audition any of the Emotiva amps, but based on the great reviews, professional and user. It confirms my thoughts at how over priced audio equipment is.

[Mr Peabody]

I think the XPA-2 was about $800.00 when I looked at it. I wish I had a use for one or could justify a purchase because I'd sure like to hear if this stuff is true. Maybe as a backup to my CJ monoblocks.....

The one reviewer was talking about how good the XPA-5 sounded right out of the box which is contrary to another review I read where it was said the amp was grainy and a bit bright until he got some hours on it then the sound began to bloom and all the negatives began to disappear.

It's also interesting how the reviewers talk as if cables actually made some difference in sound. hmmmmm.....

[IBSTORMIN]

Alas, I am moving slowly from an integrated, 8 year old Yamaha RX-V1 to separates, and since I have kids and future college bills (and less time to research) need to stay within reason and a budget.

So, pretty please (does taht help out here (-: ) provide your thoughts on the following 7 or 8 channel amplifiers at their various price points in context of the others:

Arcam P1000 7 ch ,135 wpc - $1400, demo from the floor
NAD T975 7 ch, 140 wpc - $2,100 new or a $1,400 used o
Marantz Z MM-8003, 8 ch, 140 wpc – between $1500 and $1990 new
Adcom GFA7707 7-Channel Amplifier, 7 ch, 200 wpc – likely in the $2 to $2,200 range

My local guys are partial to their NAD and Arcam units; and I do not want to overpay for a unit that will not really step up enough: i.e. if the Adcom GFA-7707 is not $600 better than the used Arcam P1000, I’d pass and go Arcam.

I am looking to bi-amp my Paradigm Studio 100s, and in the future will add either a rear center or go fully to 7.1 – for the time being though, the new amp and the RX-V1 will get married.

I appreciate any opinion and insight – thank you for sharing – I apologize if this is well-covered territory out here, see the opening to this post – three kids and hours of research do not mix well.


Thanks

I like comparing and like to help others also. I live in the Kansas City, MO area and I currently have a 7-channel amp from Integra Research, the RDA-7 for sale. If you live close you could come by and try it out. If you aren't close, you could still come by and try it out! LOL!
It is 7 channels @ 150 watts and weighs 112 lbs. Balanced Audio Technologies (BAT) helped Onkyo Integra design it. It sold for $5000 new ($700 per channel ! ! !) and works great. Selling off my H/T stuff to upgrade my stereo. If you look in past posts you will see I decided to do this. It would be great if you could compare it to what you are looking at to help you decide, absolutely no obligation to buy of course. I am selling it in the price range of the others you are looking at.

[RoadRunner6]

I havent had the chance to audition any of the Emotiva amps, but based on the great reviews, professional and user. It confirms my thoughts at how over priced audio equipment is.

BR, I think that is all relative. This online direct to end user is pretty new for most people and not entirely comfortable for some who might have been ripped off in the past. I have been buying mail order and online for many years. However, I do spend lots of time investigating before I buy, which I did with Axiom, Outlaw and Emotiva to mention a few (Monoprice too). Once I am finally convinced it is high quality gear then I pass it on to others. Whenever it is a matter of only a few percentage points or one of convenience I buy locally. Many times buying online for me is actually more convenient.

This doesn't mean products that one buys at a local dealers are necessarily over-priced considering the levels of distribution, overhead, profit and commisions. I thinks amps like Parasound and NAD, for example, are fair values when compared with other local options.

The current trend seems to be with more online direct companies and local warehouse type operations.

As far as Mr. Peabody's comment about a user's or two reviews, I agree. I must have literally spent hundreds of hours over a three month period reading every pro and user Emo review as well as the almost the entire Emotiova forum before I finally placed an order. I never decide based on a small number of owner's reviews. I read between the lines very carefully. If there is a problem it will eventually surface. This is why you won't catch me recommending Fluance speakers, for example. I only post the above user reviews to let people know that there are some serious enthusiasts buying Emo amps and not just those upgrading from receivers.

[Mr Peabody]

Except for a very very few boutique or specialty shops left, what's to keep people from not buying online. I mean these big box stores offer nothing any more. No expertise, no service after the sale, warranty issues have to be taken up directly with the manufacturer, you can touch a unit but a real listening audition is out of the question, so what's the difference. Online I can have it to my door and usually no sales tax.

Don't get me wrong, I've been on the other side before and realize the struggle of B&M stores. What we have today isn't the same. These warehouse stores showed they didn't care about me or my business so I owe no loyalty.