I have mixed emotions about Emotiva.

On the one hand, I really do like my LPA-1. I feel that it does add enough 'audio value' to my system to be worth the $499 cost. I've not had any shutdown problems driving bi-wired (nor regular wired) M80's, and I love the added presence and headroom it added over my AVR.

But on the other hand, I don't really know if they're as much of a 'straight shooter' as they make out to be. My opinion is that I do believe that they are trying to focus on their customers, but a few of the cost-saving measures of their products are slowing bubbling up.

I know first hand that the LMC-1's software is basically at a beta level. These rumors here of the MPS being underpowered (let's be fair, it *could* be something weird about M80's, and not the MPS). The screwed-up DD DSP implementation of the LMC-1. Quiet rumors of similar 'quirks' with the MMC-1. Comments of, "well, they (the LMC/MMC) just have a higher noise floor than you're used to". These discussions are making me a bit nervous of the company, even though I *want* to like their product and be an 'evangelist' for them.

That Audioholics reviewer obviously had a conversation with someone at Emotiva, "yeah, we used to have that great feature but we got so many complaints that we removed it." I find it hard to believe that a company would change a whole product line because of just a few users. And also, if this problem was specific to M80's, we'd hear more about it here. Just sort of an odd situation.

Whether the 'dumb, deaf MP3 blaster' comment is from Emotiva or Audioholics, we'll never really know. That is certainly the kind of comment that's pretty shocking to read in a review where one would hope for a fair and balanced opinion.

I've had some great email correspondence with Lonnie, apparently their senior tech. He seems a great guy. Very insightful and helpful. The posts by the president, Dan Laufman, over on AVS and AV123 also seem to show that they care. But at some point it becomes put-up-or-shut-up.

Quote:

ya, I was a bit taken back by that comment.

Right now I am not impressed by either company. It almost sounded like Emotiva was getting defensive about their amps and started to trash their former customer?



Last edited by PeterChenoweth; 05/02/07 08:09 PM.
M80v2 | VP150v2 | QS8v2
SVS Pci+ 20-39
Emotiva UMC-1 & LPA-1
M22ti + T-Amp, in the Office