Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Emotiva Amplifier

Well,it looks like I will be going with the M80's for my front speakers. Now all I need to do is purchase an amp that will compliment them. Unfortunately it has not been a straight forward process. I have read reviews on everything from the Outlaw M2200 monoblocks to the Mcintosh MC252.

The one amp that really looks enticing to me is the Emotiva XPA-2, it will be available in march for $799.00. It will do 500wpc into 4 ohms, this seems perfect for these speakers. Is an amp at this price is to good to be true? Other vendors charge double this price or more for this power.

Anyone have some experience with Emotiva products?

If you do a search on "emotiva", there have been many threads. Some Axiom owners have been happy with their products, I was not so lucky. If it was me and you are using m80's, I would look around as much as you can. Granted, I owned the MPS-1 for 3 months. At the time it was their king of the hill amp, and suppose to be stable down to 1ohms. The amp kept shutting down during explosions during action movies, or when I would turn up some rock music from time to time. Heck, my Denon 2805 never shut down even at higher levels.

Does you room size and listening habits justify a seperate amp?

My room size is 19'x20' with a 8'-14' pitched ceiling. In addition to to room size, the living room (where the speakers will be) opens into the kitchen area.

My room is 31ft x 30ft x 9ft and for the most part the Denon 2805 did just fine by itself. I do however use Odyssey monoblocks to drive my 80's. Unless you really crank it up loud you may not need seperate amps. The 80's are very efficient and don't take much power to play real loud.

You might find this a bit crazy but one of the main reasons I'm looking for a amp to drive the M80's is so I can have efficiency at low volumes. Although cranking it up here and there wont be bad either

I don't think the amp would have anything to do with efficiency at low to moderate volumes. In fact, you would be hard pressed to recognize any difference between that and an integrated receiver. The efficiency of the speaker is what is important.

The Axiom m80's are rated at 95dB's or so efficient "Inroom", which only requires "1" watt to achieve at 3ft distance. So an AMP with 200-300 watts of power will be no different.

The difference comes in at higher levels where you need enough headroom for dynamic peaks. For the majority of people, a decent 100watt or so receiver is more than adequate.

Not trying to detour you from getting an outboard amp, just making sure you understand that in most cases you will never use those extra watts.

Go with Rotel

Rotel does make a great 5.1 setup.

Throw in some onion, hot peppers and some cilantro and there ya have some real good salsa. Oh don’t forget a bit of garlic

Hey Rick, are you ready for tonight and tomorrows storm for the area, I'm guessing you guys are in it as well? Better go get some of those ingrediants before you get snowed in.

Ok, I was under the impression that a good quality amp with sufficient power would be able to reproduce a better quality sound, not only high, but low. When I auditioned speakers, I heard B&W and Paradigms on Mcintosh and Rotel amps & I could not believe how good they sounded at low volumes, both stores said the amps were a part of why they sounded exceptionally good on low volumes.

I will be using a Yamaha RX-V1800. That should be sufficient?

Thanks!

I have a A1400 and the difference at low volume is not only noticeable, it is striking.

Most AB blind tests that I've ever read about resulted in the test group not being able to distinguish between expensive tube amps down to moderately priced integrated AVR's. Even the diehard expensive group picked the cheap AVR when blind folded.

Don't take this the wrong way, but having been this road myself, I can recommend you do the test for yourself. You will be very surprised.

Hey, I'm sure loads of us would love to test out the A1400-8 in comparison to a lot of other amps we keep our yes on. It's always a matter of price and timing, of course. And risk! Plus, I think it's truly wise to try everything you can in your own home over a matter of days. That's clearly Axiom's stance too, which is great. That 30 -day trial is excellent for trying to figure out what you like. Should be that way with amps too. And most audio stores do have return policies. Try a couple out - before the interest hits the credit card (return what you don't like in under 28 days).

Zoë

Eric,

Being pretty new, your not familiar with my history. I've done plenty of testing through the years with various brands of AVR's and amps during auditions. Currently, I'm driving my 80's with Odyssey Khartago Extreme monoblocks. My Denon 2805 is driving the rest of the setup and being used as a pre-pro for the Odyssey amps.

I can assure you to my ears and those that have auditioned in my home, most will find now perceived difference at low volume. I come from a musical family and have a great ear having played many instruments in my lifetime.

I totally agree that big a$$ amps make a huge difference when extra headroom and capacitance is called upon, but at lower volumes unused power is just that unused. Dang, I'm starting to sound like JohnK. lol

Are you saying you've taken part in true Blind AB listening test, and can distinguish between various amps that are calibrated to the same levels?

Sorry. I don't have much time (being called back at work ).

It is important to note here that I can only vouch for the A1400 (and that I never claimed otherwise ).

Recent annecdote: One of my friends has Outlaw 2200 with Paradigm Studio 100. He came to my place already talking about arranging for blind testing the Outlaws with the A1400 (he was already familiar with my speakers). After spending a few hours with the A1400 and the Epic80/500 (moslty at low volumes because the neighboors came in during testing), he said it was pointless to do the A/B. He has already put the A1400 in his shopping cart awaiting the settlement of his divorce.

So, no, I cannot say much about all the other separate amps, but I'm accumulating a lot of stories on the A1400 on top of what my own ears are telling me.

If you get the chance to experiment with the A1400, I would really appreciate your comments (still looking forward for Mojo to try it too!).

On that note, I have to go!

Z, no, there isn't any principle of audio technology which would lead to an amplifier with a higher maximum output capacity producing better sound even at low or moderate levels which were well within the capacity of an amplifier with a lower max. What the salesmen at the stores told you on this subject would fall into the voodoo audio category. Similar claims are made fairly often, but they have no factual basis and have failed when put to a properly controlled blind listening test. Clean is clean, regardless of whether the maximum output capability is 10 watts or a thousand watts.

Your 1800 is quite powerful(and of course is "good quality")and may very well be entirely sufficient for your needs, depending on how high of an average listening level that you use and how wide the dynamic range of the source material is.

Thanks,

Some day if funds allow, I would like to try the 1400. I'm sure it is a great amp from what I've read and heard. A lot of people say it is expensive, but if you break it down, it is only $500 per channel. Heck each of my monoblocks were more than that....

I just wish you could by the chassis with 2 o 3 amps, and then add additional amps as time/budget allow.

What an interesting idea! I'd go for something like that too. I would love to upgrade to something powerful like the A1400-8 too, but it's way out of budget right now. And, well, I'd like to see a two channel version come out for those of us who are not big HT people.

Zoë

That is why I liked the modular design of my previous Emotiva MPS-1. You could purchase just the chasis, and start with one or more monoblock amps as needed, for a total of 7 channels. It is hard for most to justify almost $4K right out of the starting blocks, that is if I want to stay married.

Married, nothing, try alive.

Wow, I've got to look into that!

I'm very lucky, my partner encouraged me to get into this hobby. Of course, we're saving to buy a house right now, so the M60s I bought last month are truly the last piece of audio equipment I buy this year! But, I'm really happy with where I am at with my system, so now it's time to listen to music!

Zoë

I have been running one of their cheapest amps, the LPA-1, for almost a year powering all of my Axioms. It has been on and powering my system for at least 3-4 hours every day (watching TV or background music while I cook, etc). Bi-amped M80's, VP150 center, and M22 as surrounds, using all 7 channels of the amp. My Pioneer Elite receiver couldn't handle 4-ohm speakers (lots of clipping and distortion at anything above 'pleasantly-loud').

Absolutely love the amp. I had one minor problem with one of the status LED's flickering a bit, but a gentle tap to the amp's chassis winked it back on and it's not ever done it again. I've never had any trouble with high volume levels either, whether 2-channel audio or 5.1 TV & movies. It can push my setup to at least 'dangerous' volume levels (100+db) with no apparent strain (distortion, clipping, shutdown, etc). Way too loud to actually enjoy, anyway. If aliens stole the amp I wouldn't hesitate to buy another one.

Fantastic value for $500, IMHO.

Really like Emotiva pricing, I've been looking at the XPA-5.

This is more about Emotiva itself than about their amplifiers.
I bought an Emotiva RPA-1 a few months ago and their customer service was simply awful. The dim button on the unit did not work and after contacting them a few times, they finally answered me and transfered my case to their tech support. They never returned any of my emails or calls for close to 3 weeks and when they finally did, they basically told me they didn't know what to tell me. They said it would be too expensive for them to ship me another unit and they weren't sure if they had another unit in stock. I figured it would be a nightmare if I ever needed to have the unit repaired or replaced so I simply packed the amp and shipped it back to them. Once they received the amp they ignored my emails for a while, they they told me they were waiting to see if they were gonna be charged duty fees on the shipment before issuing a refund. Took a month an a few angry emails for them to finally issue a refund. In the end, they told me I had no right to be angry with them because the unit wasn't even broken afterall! Like I would have gone to all this trouble to return an amplifier that wasn't broken when the company offers a 30 day in-home trial.

Stories like this makes you love Axiom more and more!

I have the MPS-1 and DMC-1 from Emo and so far so good. Actually the deciding factor for my purchase was SirQuack. At the time he was happy with this amp. This was obviously before his shutdown troubles, but I have seen no indication of shut down - no distortion, no clipping, just clean power and I frequently run at 110-125 dB. Can't do it too long 'cause the ears start to ring, but the equipment doesn't even get hot. In fact my pre-pro runs hotter than the amp! My room is roughly 19 X 25 X 8 and I'm looking to add another EP500 - can't have too much bass

Scott

Thats exactly what I told them. That they should take lessons from Axiom. I've never seen such carelessness from any company I've delt with before.

I think the dim button works, just not as intended. Instead of dimming the display, it affected the minds of the Emotiva employees.

Even though I returned my amp, I will say that Emotiva's customer service was the exactly opposite as described by alakazoo. Emotiva is based out of TN, and Rob, Lonnie, and Dan (the owner) are the ones that answer the phones. They are not some huge company with a call center.

I must have called dozens of times over the months I owned the MPS-1, and for the most part always got one of them. Lonnie, for example, spent many hours total talking to me and I learned many things from his expertise.

The few times I left a message, I always got a call back within a few hours or so. Even Dan's wife, answered from time to time. Yes, emails have always been a lot slower response, and that is not new news. If you follow any of the threads on AVS or AV123, the norm is that your best bet is to call them.

Heck, look at Odyssey Audio, pretty much just run by one guy, Klaus. People that appreciate that some companies don't try to be some huge global presence, should see that as a good thing and have a little patience.

In the end, I was able to send my amp back for a full refund 3 months later, no questions asked. I was nice to them and they returned the favor.

I'm aware that my situation was the opposite than most of what I had read on various forums but I was nothing but nice to them until they started to take advantage of the situation because I was being overly patient. I didn't want to start a survey on Emotiva, I just thought it was important to speak out about my worse buying experience in years.

Well I've heard enough about them to stay clear of their products... Anyway now that Axiom's amp is out it would be at the top of my list if/when I ever decide to go with a dedicated amp.

I agree with sirquack.

I had their LMC-1 prepro and ended up returning it because it didn't meet my needs. During the course of that process, I spoke to Lonnie and a couple of other people several times and they were extremely helpful and pleasant. They were fantastic to deal with. I received an email from Emotiva with the UPS tracking number for the refund check about an hour after I received the email from UPS stating that my LMC-1 had been received by Emotiva. The check arrived 2 days later, a day ahead of schedule.

I am truly sorry to see that one person had a bad experience with them, but I'm pretty sure that the bad experience is just a fluke.

Same deal with Axiom, really. Just as we've had people on these boards complain that Axiom customer service is bad. The rest of us know that they too, are fantastic.

I love my emo stuff and they have always answered my questions more promptly than expected. ie.-Lonnie is at ces, will get back next week, but then emailed me later that day.

Jeb

Gotta jump in here. I've had the Emotiva LMC-1 & LPA-1 combo for about 6 months. The sound quality has been fantastic and the build quality is exceptional, especially when you look at their prices. Sure there are more expensive amps and processers but for what I need and want, these work great. I'll be looking at the new LMC-2 processer and XPA-5 amp when they come out in a few months.

I did have a glitch with the amp and had to send it back for repair. My only complaint, and I let them know how upset I was, was having to pay for shipping to the factory. They paid return but I had to pay for the first leg. The amp was less than 60 days old when it went out so I was upset and let them know. Lonnie and I discussed, didn't agree, but hung up agreeing not to agree. I'm fine with what I have and look forward to my next purchase. Emotiva products are not for everyone, that's why there is competition and multiple products on the market!!