Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater XPA 2 Now! A Keeper?

Nice caps!

The cap size is making me capsize.

One size fits all?

I finally got Lonnie on the phone and he concurred that the XPA2 and M80s appear to be a mismatch. He states that with the original M80s the crossover did appear to drop below 1.5 ohm at certain frequencies (he didn't specify what testing was done). Lonnie also stated that the the XPA2 does not have a current limiting circuit as does the Rotel, this is an intentional design to allow the xpa2 to express the full dynamic range in an unfettered manner.

The only emotiva amp(s) he would suggest as a consideration to run the M80s would be two XPA1 monoblocks, which are able to go down to a 1.5 ohm load. These will be $999 apiece so the cost would go up quite a bit with that solution.

The sound of the XPA2 with the M80s at high volumes was quite good, however perhaps this is the definitive word regarding their incompatibility at just such high volumes.

The original M80s croosver was reworked back in 2002-2003 and the newer tests that have been done prove it does not get anywhere near 1.5ohm.

For that kind of money you might as well get the A1400-2 that is now looking like it will be in production soon.

I'm not trying to doubt Lonnie as I had a lot of conversation with him 3 years ago about the MPS1. But, he had never even heard of Axiom at the time. Even the prior m80's never dipped below 4ohm at any frequency, the Soundstage graphs don't lie. Sounds like an excuse to me. Oh well.

Absolutely, I am just passing along the info for those who had expressed interest in the XPA/M80 pairing question.

I think the main difference is that now he is acknowledging the incompatibility between the design of his amp(s) and the M80s and not attributing it to setup issues or a defective unit. Also he is happy with his design so we should not expect a change in his future amp designs to improve this situation with regard to the M80s.

Does he understand it is not just m80's. I know people with Rockets having the same problem on other forums.

I didn't want to press him on that point, I think we are all wise to suspect the veracity of the info about going M80s going below 4 ohms; my goal here was merely to convey/share that the problem has been acknowledged and there are no current plans to improve compatibility on Lonnie's end.