Emotiva LPA-1 Impressions by Joe Sixpack

[L.J.]

PLEASE STOP TALKING ME INTO BUYING STUFF... OKAY?!
That means you L.J.

HUh?

Dude, what's up with that review. Surely you got your cables by now. I get my BJC cable the next day.

[Rich-n-Texas]

HUh?

Dude, what's up with that review. Surely you got your cables by now. I get my BJC cable the next day.

Brought them in about 30 minutes ago. I appreciate BJC sending them USPS Priority, but could they not have at least packed a little bubble wrap around them?

Anyway, you didn't like my review? In my case I don't have anything to compare this amp to, obviously since it's my first component purchase of this type in the signal path. And I wasn't able to audition other speakers, so again, nothing to compare to. I can only speak to what I heard with the old HTR 5740, then the 3800, and now this thing. Each step of the way I heard improvements; I'm astonished with what the speakers sound like now but I can't say that they're at their full potential. Kex OTOH has had all sorts of contraptions to mix and match so his review is definately going to be one laced with more experience and thoroughness (hopefully that all made sense).

In any event, since I have the A/V furniture in a more accessible position, I'm going to do some mods to the audio rack (like pull that crappy cardboard backer panel off), and I might buy another HDMI cable to replace the one that came with the FIOS box. Right now I have the Monster HDMI cable running directly from the STB to the TV, and I'd swear the picture looks much better than with that long black cable. I'm going to swap that one back in then compare. I'm also thinking I may not have something in the receiver set properly, so I want to do a side-by-side with that scenario as well. I have to make longer speaker cables too.

I'll have everything in place sometime this week, and then I'll get more panels made up.

Update your gallery yet L.J.?

[L.J.]

Brought them in about 30 minutes ago. I appreciate BJC sending them USPS Priority, but could they not have at least packed a little bubble wrap around them?

Anyway, you didn't like my review? In my case I don't have anything to compare this amp to, obviously since it's my first component purchase of this type in the signal path. And I wasn't able to audition other speakers, so again, nothing to compare to. I can only speak to what I heard with the old HTR 5740, then the 3800, and now this thing. Each step of the way I heard improvements; I'm astonished with what the speakers sound like now but I can't say that they're at their full potential. Kex OTOH has had all sorts of contraptions to mix and match so his review is definately going to be one laced with more experience and thoroughness (hopefully that all made sense).

In any event, since I have the A/V furniture in a more accessible position, I'm going to do some mods to the audio rack (like pull that crappy cardboard backer panel off), and I might buy another HDMI cable to replace the one that came with the FIOS box. Right now I have the Monster HDMI cable running directly from the STB to the TV, and I'd swear the picture looks much better than with that long black cable. I'm going to swap that one back in then compare. I'm also thinking I may not have something in the receiver set properly, so I want to do a side-by-side with that scenario as well. I have to make longer speaker cables too.

I'll have everything in place sometime this week, and then I'll get more panels made up.

Update your gallery yet L.J.?

Oh, I'll have to go back and read this thread. No, no updated photos yet. I'll try to get around to it next week. How the heck do you post those small pics that get bigger when you click on them?

[Rich-n-Texas]

Oh, I'll have to go back and read this thread. No, no updated photos yet. I'll try to get around to it next week. How the heck do you post those small pics that get bigger when you click on them?

PhotoBucket has an option that will generate an HTML code for "Clickable Thumbnail Images".

[kexodusc]

o I want to do a side-by-side with that scenario as well. I have to make longer speaker cables too.

If you go ahead doing side-by-side swaps with the amp and receiver, and you're swapping cables, be careful. Turn them off. Unplug them even. You could get zapped which would suck, but even worse, you could short your receiver or amp if you accidentally cross wires while its on.
I bumped the bananas while trying to maneuver mine in my rack and it tripped the protect mode once. Good thing too - I managed to yank a wire out of a banana and sure enough it had landed flat on another terminal.

A/B tests are fun, but they're a lot of work.

Anyway, you didn't like my review? In my case I don't have anything to compare this amp to, obviously since it's my first component purchase of this type in the signal path. And I wasn't able to audition other speakers, so again, nothing to compare to. I can only speak to what I heard with the old HTR 5740, then the 3800, and now this thing. Each step of the way I heard improvements; I'm astonished with what the speakers sound like now but I can't say that they're at their full potential. Kex OTOH has had all sorts of contraptions to mix and match so his review is definately going to be one laced with more experience and thoroughness (hopefully that all made sense).

Personally Rich, I tend to put more weight on reviews from (credible) people with less experience. Sometimes you really have to "learn how to listen" to pick out differences in equipment upgrades. I go into a near shaolin ninja state of concentration whenever I compare DAC's because I find differences to be extremely small. Same with CD players.

If a total newb can walk in a room and immediately realize he's hearing things he didn't hear before, then I tend to believe the improvements are more substantial.
I bet people find your perspective every bit as valid, if not more so than mine. I never really expanded too much on how the receiver's internal amp compared since I had already done that with the other power amps I elected to use and I probably just skipped ahead.

I suspect most interested people who would read what you have to say would be receiver owners looking for a decent (perhaps their first) multi-channel power amp, and they'll want to know how it stacked up against a comparable receiver, not how it fared against other amps. That's probably the biggest target market for this particular amp, at least.