Well I went with a used LPA-1 since one of the peters on this board has M80s and an LPA-1 and he said he has not had any issues even when driving them extremely loud.
Hey, that's
me!
Yes, I have an LPA-1. I love it. I've had it for almost 2 years now powering my whole Axiom system. Bi-amped M80's (shush, it's the way I like it), VP150, and QS8's. I've not had any heat or shutdown problems. Whether 2 channel stereo or 5.1 movies. I crank it up and it's just loud and clear. It'll play far louder than is comfortable for my ears, so I'm perfectly content with it.
On the other hand, I also owned an LMC-1 for about 3 weeks. It was the buggiest piece of consumer electronics I've ever owned. Felt like an Alpha version. Constant problems of weird sound modes, forgotten settings, useless sound level checks, and occasional hissing or other weird background noises. I exchanged a dozen emails with Lonnie @ Emotiva at the time, and I have nothing but praise for him. He was very helpful. But in the end the 'frustration factor' was just too high for me and I returned it. I had a refund check from Emotiva in about 3 days. They actually issued the refund check within about 2 hours of the LMC being delivered to them, according to UPS tracking numbers. Now to be fair, the time period I owned the LMC was
prior to the final firmware that was released. I have read that the LMC is much better on the final firmware. But I don't know from personal experience so I can't say.
But back to the first hand, I am on the preorder list for the UMC. I'm very eager to replace my ancient c2002 AVR with something that was made in an era of HDMI & HD. And the UMC's features and price fit my criteria well. Outlaw's 997 also looks like an wicked prepro too, but it's at a higher cost that's a bit out of my budget.
I expect that Emotiva has learned from their mistakes on the LMC and will do a better job on the UMC. They've certainly had enough time to work on it. And if they don't get it right, I have 100% confidence in their return policy.
