Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater A1400-2

Since many on the forum have been waiting for this amp to come out from Axiom I haven't seen any talk about it being available for preorder, Or am I missing this.
I just noticed it in the Owners forum
Sorry if this has been discussed already
Carry on
Mel N.

wait, this amp is available for pre-order?

just checked out the owners club info.

700 W per channel into two 4 ohm channels is great, but the price tag is a little steep... especially given the
fact that I just purchased a ring, and have a wedding and a vacation that I am planning in june.

The a1400-2 amp is available to owners club members for a limited time for $1999, and then jump up to $2620. I really want one of these things, but I don't see it happening while it is at the introductory price. I called Axiom, and rent said the introductory price should be available for "at least a couple of weeks".

Hmm... I haven't been notified of this. I'm having trouble finding where the owners club info is. Where is it??

Thank you! There was no link I could find to it from the home page.

Price is a little steep...but...my...clicking finger....is....getting...twitchy

Very spendy for 2 channels. $1500 for a regular price would have been tempting, but that much as the discounted price means I won't be adding it to my A1400-8.

Just in case anyone was wondering, my above post should say "Brent", not "rent"

Ahh, that makes more sense.

No, I'm gonna continue to read it as "rent" and stay confused!

Yeah. Can't use the B-word.

Moooove, Brent, get out the way!

$2000 for a 2 channel is too much for me, I will be sticking with Emotiva or Outlaw, unless I can suddenly afford the A1400-8, better W/ch for the money, but even it is very costly compared to the others for 8 channels.

So what db level would 700 watts through the M80's be at about 12feet away?

anyone? anyone?

pn

I looked it up, neat calculator here.

http://myhometheater.homestead.com/splcalculator.html

For the record, 700 watts with 2 speakers at 12 feet = 121 DB. That is louder than most rock concerts!

pn

Really really loud.

So... seriously, how does one find out about these updates? Was there an e-mail that went out or are we just supposed to check the site regularly? If there was a mail, I didn't get it. Conspiracy!

The owner's club emails have become sparse. I got 2 in the last 5 months and the last one was about the EP800. They used to come every 2 weeks or so. Not too sure what is happening there.

I have to admit I'm a bit disappointed...

I was hoping for something in the $1k range for an amp that is 1/4 of the channels of the A1400-8. I know this amp has more power per channel than the A1400-8, but I would have been happy with a 2 channel amp rated half the power (say 350-400W @ 4 ohm) of this one for half the price.

Ditto SRoode's comments. Unfortunately I'm not their target customer for this amp as I was hoping for something at around half the cost as well (and I could've settled for something less than 700 wpc just fine).

It's too bad the mailings don't come out more regularly. There were some great deals on custom finish products judging by the items listed as "sold - wait for the next mailing." A pair of high gloss real wood rosewood for close to list M80 pricing... WOW. I have a few friends that would've jumped on those quickly. Apparently someone is getting "the mailings" to jump on those deals. I want to be in the super secret Axiom owners club that gets the mails with those deals in them!

Jason

I haven't been getting the mailings as regularly either.

The OC gets updated every two weeks (1st and 15th).

I think the mailings sort of petered out around the same time as the audition list stopped being updated (ie when Amie left the site).

So, I just poked around a bit on the OC and apparently there is a separate mailing list you can sign up for that tells you when the factory outlet owner's club is updated... I'll give that a try.

Doormat... seems to make sense. The forums definitely miss Amie's oversight.

Jason

Yeah, I didn't realize her leaving would mean a total forsaking of us poor wretches.

$1,000 would have been a steal. $1,500 I would have tolerated and still thought there was value. $2,000 as the discounted price makes me wonder if they're purposely overcharging so they don't have to make as many.

I found the pricing of Axiom's 1400-8 to be way too high to be competitive, and now the proposed pricing on the 1400-2 to be just bizarre.

I guess Axiom doesn't intend people to use this amp with Axiom speakes. Let me clarify that. I have been in the audio (video) game for over 20 years. I have always followed the basic rule, your speakers (for 2 channel system) should cost at approx. 50% of your total system. Now, following this rule, If I own a pair of M80's I should be spending around a grand on electronics. Ok, so the M80's are a great value so lets call it one to one instead. That means I should be spending no more than $1600 on an amp, pre amp and CD player.

But in this case, Axiom isn't even in the ballpark with this new 2 channel amplifier. Axiom's pricing means I would be spending more than double on electronics than on speakers. So based on the rule up above, Axiom doesn't expect their speaker customers to use their new amplifer(s).

I have been an Axiom customer for over 20 years. What I always loved about this company is it's ability to design, manufacture and sell excellent products at realistic prices.

I don't know who they are marketing these amplfiers to in todays economy (it isn't me, anybody I know, or even the Axiom customer base).

I think Axiom has greatly missed the mark here. I hope this isn't a trend of things to come from this great company.

I suspect these amps are as much a pet project as a product. You should see Tom Cumberlands eyes light up when he talks about the A1400-8.

I am certainly not their target market either. If I ever decide I need more amplification, I will probably buy a pro amp.

It's not just a pet project, it's new technology. It wasn't possible to get that kind of efficient amplification digitally without numerous innovations. The reason it's expensive is do in no small part to the amount of research that went into it. Early adopters of new technology typically pay a premium. Whether or not the price comes down, though, I'm not willing to bet.

That may be true. But I wonder if the increase in sound quality is really worth the 3 to 4 times the price of some conventional amplifiers. I think you'd be further ahead to put your money into a pre-amp / processor. But this is for each idividual to decide.

I have to agree with the consensus. I was hoping for something cheaper with less channels and less WPC. And where the heck is the pre/pro??

I am not sure they'll sell many units at $2600!!!!

I must admit that having lusted after this amp since the first murmur of a 2-channel version of the A1400-8, the price simply seems too steep, even after the discounted price is taken into account. I say this even though I'm fortunate enough to have the discretionary income available to me. I'll be considering other options for now.

In my opinion it depends on who your comparing them to... for the power your getting, many reputable amp manufacturers would be around the same price if not higher, with the old A A/B technology.

Spoiler,
I notice you have the Outlaw M2200s. Do you find they make a significant difference over the 3805 alone? Any drawbacks to them? I was flirting with the idea of picking up a couple, although I don't really think I need anything more than the 3808; plenty of clean volume.

Interesting stuff. So who pays $2600 for 700wpc then? There must be a target market if multiple manufacturers offer such a beast.

I was hoping for the same amount of wpc, but for much less cost

I have to sit on the fence and agree with both sides.
The new technology, build time and research costs set up the price higher than many hoped but for Axiom, it is a bit of a 180 from their inexpensive but quality speakers/products ideology as most seem to perceive them as a company.

I am still interested in the 2 channel version though at this time, i am likely to do one of two things:
Buy the unit with the intention of testing and possibly returning (but i really hate doing that sort of thing if i'm not really committed to maybe keeping it),
or waiting until the world economic climate makes me feel warm and fuzzy again before i pull any cash out of my mattress.

Axioms introductory price on that amp is a pretty good price when compared to something in the same category. Something like the Rotel RB 1092 would be close. If I were in need of a good quality 2 channel amp with monster power (can I legally say that ) I would give Axioms amp close consideration.

Competition is Bryston, McIntosh and so on. So Axiom is actually on the cheap side!

In late summer, I had the opportunity to have the new Denon power amp 10chx150W/300W(MSRP 8K$) for 4 days in my appartment and a Bryston 2-channel 1400Watt (14bSST) (6K$). I still don't have time to have a complete report as I tend to be thourough (and it takes time), but the current bashing in this post is kind of motivating me to bring out the main lines.

Test were done with the same 2 people I usually do testing (plus one new one, but who is also someone exposed almost daily with real instruments). We spent the first day listening to different amp and setups just get our ears in tune (the most common problem of any test is that people are not familiar with the equipment and thus cannot possibly distinguish between anything; ear break-in is real).

Anyway: the bottom line is that (all tests in stereo with M80 and a 100W limited switchbox so no power comparison were done):
1) A1400 against Denon POA-A1HDCI
Out of the 40 tracks times 4 people (160 samples total), 14 times the listener was convinced they are a difference and the difference picked was the A1400. That's nearly 9%. A lot.
2) A1400 against Bryston 14bSST
Only 6 tracks x 3 people (we ran out of time and lost one person). No one perceived any sort of difference.

I guess that was my point. Personally, I was looking for a 2 channel amp to power the M80s, and I was looking for something that could deliver about 400W at 4 ohm. The shutdown issues with the Emotiva amps have scared me off a bit, and I was hoping that Axiom could fill that void with their product. I have no doubt the Axiom amp is worth every penny of the $1990, but it was not the product I was looking for to fill my current needs.

Rotel offers a class D amp rated at 500 watts into 8 ohms, that would be around 700 watts into 4 ohms, I think. Bryston also offers amps up to 1000 watts into 8 ohms. I think the market here for the Brystons is more for professional applications rather than HT. Bars, clubs, PAs, etc.

I just can't imagine needing 700 wpc in my 4000 cubic foot HT room, I probably don't even need half that.

Hi doormat...the 2200's are indeed a significant upgrade to the 3805 when it comes to higher volume levels. The output is cleaner, tighter, and although I didn't expect it, bass is increased and "punchier" with the M80's. The 2200's have never shut down.

The downside (although minor because I rarely do this) is that I can get the 2200's to clip at extreme levels (110 - 120dbs at about 10ft, bass clips when set to large), and have gotten them toasty to the touch. But... never a shutdown in nearly 3 years.

The Rotel is rated at.

Rotel RB-1092 Specifications:



Power Output: 2 x 500 watts (8Ω, <0.03% THD),

2 x 1000 watts (4Ω, 0.09% THD)

Holy moses.

Yeah, here's hoping they find a way to make it come down. Why not license their new technology to other companies and make up research costs that way? I must admit I'm naive to these things.

All this talk of 500, 700 and 1000 watts is really starting to make my little Rotel amp seem inadequate for the job.

I should have never opened this thread.

Not mine, it works just fine.

The issue here is probably that the power supply is common to the 1400-8 and 1400-2 (they're both 1400-watt amps so it makes some sense ;)), and a P/S that size is both big and expensive to produce.

The electronics were expensive and time-consuming to *develop* but I expect the build cost for the additional channels (between 1400-2 and 1400-8) is lower than than the cost of the power supply and box. There were a few early discussions about this after the 1400-8 came out.

In fairness, most of the requests seemed to be for a 2 or 3 channel version of the 1400-8 rather than say a 600-2 or 700-2 which possibly *would* have been in the hoped-for price range.

Going back a few pages in the thread, in a bizarre twist of fate I received an owner's club e-mail the day after writing that I hadn't received one in ages.

Maybe someone is watching the forums from the shadows?

Jason