Ok,
Some of you wanted an update when I received my new Emotiva RPA-2 power amp, so here goes...
It was supposed to come Monday, but being an holiday it arrived Tuesday (today). And yes I left work early, good thing I'm on salary
Anyway, I unpacked and hooked it up with all new cables/wires from monoprice.com
Now I could (and kinda wanted to) go on saying it's freakin awesome, blew me away, the best rush I've ever had and all the other over exaggerated terms.
But I wanted to be really honest as to how I really reacted when I heard the first song. The first song I played this time was Gary Moore's "Victims of the future" I purposely listened to this song over and over without the amp and just my Yamaha HTR-5760. I listened at low, mid, high and extreme volumes for the last couple of days. I thought this would really let me know if the amp would make any difference once I heard this song with the RPA-2.
So had the volume at -10, this was extremely loud for me without the amp, yammy only. The song starts slow with just guitar and Gary's vocals. It sounded excellent right off. Now this particular song, right after a brief slow intro of vocal and guitar slowly stops, there is a pause of total silence for about 2 seconds.
Then, Gary and his band kick in full tilt with a massive power chord and explosion of guitar, drums and bass.
I have to tell you, it actually scarred me! I felt my whole body jerk. My jaw dropped and as I type this now, I remember saying calmly...Holy Sh*t. That was all I said, chills ran up thru my spine and neck, my heart actually started to beat faster. I started saying some other words, thou can't remember what. I'm sure I was smiling and then started re-positioning myself in different areas of the room as the song continued to play, so I could soak this massive quake of sound waves filling the room. The slicing guitar, the snap of the snare drum, the power of the kick drum, the incredible pristine waves of cymbals and the massive, thumping and smooth bass guitar. All of it, just incredible.
Now, keep in mind that with my old HTR-5760, I just "thought" it sounded great. I have read a lot on the net about some who say watts are just watts and I probably wouldn't hear much, if any difference. What I experienced is like night and day, especially at mid, high and extreme volumes. Now granted at lower volumes, not much difference. I can now realize that before the RPA-2, I was actually listening to some slight distorted mids and highs, but really just didn't notice it since I had nothing to compare to. Now I see (hear) what I have been missing.
I can see now why people go with separate amplification. Now most of you know from this thread that I was fairly concerned about Emotiva Amps shutting down with the M80's. I will definitely keep you all updated if it does shut down.
I am going to really put this amp thru the ringer, btw, during the 30 minutes of extreme volumes the amp was still cold from delivery. No heat issues whatsoever. I will drive this thing as much as my ears can stand during my 30 day in home trial. If it shuts down once, it's going back, no doubt about it.
Last, but not least, the M80's are unbelievable speakers when given the juice (and not juiced for that matter). I just can't believe how loud, crisp and clean they can really can get and stare back at you like "what, is this all you got?" I could not be more happy right now.
Thanks to you all, I ordered the EP350 today to replace my old crappy sub. I just can't imagine how my system will sound once I get the EP350...no, really..I'm saying that I can't imagine it, I just can't right now. But, I will soon find out once it arrives.
Hope you all enjoyed my experience, I know I did and yea I know, this is all still new to me. That is, actually having "some" quality audio gear. I have to slow down spending $$$ on anymore audio equipment for now, the wife is starting to...no, wait! I will NOT stop! I will buy what I WANT! I will buy and spend and...uh, "what honey? yes dear, dinner is almost ready...what would you like to drink baby? ok, it's on the way sweetheart..."
Dana
