Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater External Amp on it's way....

Charles, I can sympathize with you on the noisy environment. I'm on a "bigger" route in a small city / big town and have traffic noise constantly. My living room and HT is on the front corner facing a big 5-way intersection with the high school across the street and a hospital up the road. Replacing our windows helped, but I'm not sure there is much more I can reasonably do.

Several years ago, while building my soundbooth, I found losts of good information on the Auralex site. It's a little odd to navigate as there's Auralex University, Acoustics 101, etc... but it's all there (mixed in somewhere).

Remember that you're looking for information on isolation... not diffusion or absorption products.

I'd say save your money and put it into your basement. Your basement has a huge head start as there is dirt surrounding at least 3 of your walls (is it a walk-out basement or enclosed?). My basement set-up was a walk-out, the HT was against the far wall from the opening and either side was underground. There were two small windows at the very top of the wall that I filled in with fiber-fill to make it darker and keep any unwanted noise out. I wish I still had that room for my current set-up. The entry level system I had down in that basement sounded great because of the room being so 'dead'. It was really dead, have you ever walked into a sound proof room or a really well insulated room and you could practically hear the silence? That's about what my basement was like. So the music filled the room completely, there were no external noises to have to contend with.

I never even knew of room treatments back then though. So it could have sounded even better. And then there are the Axiom speakers I have now, good God do I wish I could have listened to these down there! So yeah I'd just concentrate on getting the basement ready for your move down there. You should be MUCH happier once you get everything down there. I will tell you this, do you remember the pics of my HT closet I built? It does an excellent job of keeping all of my equipment quiet. All of the exhaust fans from the computers and so on all empty out into the rear of the closet, and I don't hear any of them. We live out in the country now, so my biggest annoyance is when the window air conditioner is running. It makes a lot of noise. But this winter will be better because we have an Edenpure than runs super quiet. I don't usually look forward to winter, but for this very reason, I'm looking forward to listening to my system in a nice, quiet setting.

Hmm, that's not a bad idea. I guess I better pick up some and get to work! thanks

*** UPDATE ***



Ok so I had mentioned this would be more of a 'long term' report as opposed to hearing it out of the box and giving my write-up on the XPA-3. Well it's been about a month now so I figured I'd give my impressions so far.

I won't rehash all of the fidelity improvements I stated earlier, all I'll say is they haven't changed. As far as reliability issues go... well that's a little up in the air right now. If you'll recall I was working feverishly on getting the 12 volt trigger working between the Denon and the Emotiva. Their plugs weren't the same, so I had to make it a DIY project, getting my parts down at the Shack. After trying a few connects that didn't work, I finally found a set of plugs that did the job. I was able to plug the one connect into the Denon, and the other one slipped right into the back of the Emotiva. So I figured my 12 volt trigger was done.

But I was mistaken.

When I turn the Denon on and off it has no effect on the Emotiva what-so-ever. If the Emotiva is off and I turn the Denon on... the Emotiva stays off. If the Emotiva is on and I turn the Denon off the Emotiva stays on. So for now I'm stumped as to what to do for the 12 volt trigger. Why does this all matter you ask??? Well the Emotiva has at times switched to protect mode on me, and I was trying to get the 12 volt trigger up and running so that whenever the Denon was on it would send a constant signal to the Emotiva to keep it on. It seems as though the XPA-3 goes into protect mode out of confusion more than anything. For instance in all this time I've only actually noticed the amp going into protect mode once during musical playback. Upon noticing that, interested in whether or not it was somehow the pull from the speakers during that particular passage that sent it into protect mode, I turned the amp back on and played the exact same song, at the exact same volume and everything... it made it through the song unscathed the second time (and every other time since then I might add).

It's gone into protect somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 to 8 times since I hooked it up. But, the interesting thing is it's never when you'd think it would. For instance you'll remember the first time I noticed the red light blinking, it was after I'd turned the Denon off without turning off the Emotiva. Well every other time the red light has started blinking it's been at odd times, like once I hit the eject button on the DVD player and it started blinking? There wasn't even any music or anything playing, so how could it need protecting? All the other times, besides the single musical passage I mentioned above, has been while I've been switching the Denon from once source to the next. Mind you it's not EVERYTIME I switch the source, but the few times it's gone into protect, that's usually when it does so. Again there was never anything even playing when this was going on, so it seems to me that for what ever reason, when the Emotiva has NOTHING being sent to it, it goes into protect mode. Strange.

It's nothing more than an annoyance mind you. Once the red light starts flashing I just turn the unit off, turn it right back on and she's good to go. But that was why I was trying to get the 12 volt trigger to work. I figured if it were fed a constant signal, perhaps it would stop doing this. But I have never once been able to drive it into protect mode while really pushing the system. I can play it loud and strong all I want, the XPA-3 takes it all in stride. And it does so without ever getting more that a little warm to the touch. I've played it 6 hours straight at fairly challenging levels and felt her and the Denon felt warmer than she did.

So all in all a month has passed and besides a small irritation that may or may not have a resolution, the Emotiva has me grinning from ear to ear whenever I'm playing my system. Perhaps there are other amps out there that never shut down inexplicably like this once has (and maybe this one won't either once I figure out the 12 volt trigger). But I doubt many of those can give me this much performance for such a small price tag.

For all I've gotten out of the Emotiva at this incredible price point, I'll flick the power button every so often (it's averaged two blinking lights per week so far).... no biggie!



P.S. (another theory I had was that we had our circut overloaded up until this past Friday. Everything in the room was all on one breaker. When the air conditioner would kick on the lights would dim and all that jazz. So we put the electronics on a separate breaker than everything else, and put the computers on yet another separate breaker. Perhaps is was the strain on the system that contributed to the Emotiva going into protect??? We'll have to wait and see I suppose. I haven't noticed the red light blinking since Friday though!)

1. did you assign the trigger in the setup menu?
2. why would you keep an amp that keeps going into protect mode?

Setup menu eh... actually no, I didn't realize I needed to do this.

I've been trying to trouble shoot the protect mode thing since it had nothing to do with what it should have to do with. I dunno, the Denon did go through a fire as you'll recall. And although it seems to work just fine I wasn't sure if perhaps there was an unforseen problem with it, so I'm trying to give the Emotiva a chance. Now that I have all of my HT electronics switched over to a separate circut, I'm keeping my eye on it to see if it continues to do so for no apparent reason. If so, then I might consider sending it back (have 4 days left in the trial period).

But the biggest reason is, because over all I'm very pleased with it.

Thanks for the update. I’m still considering the XPA-3 as a possible upgrade especially if I get the Outlaw 997 instead of the SN R-972.

You say it’s gone into protect mode about twice a week, about how many hours is that. I have my system on virtually every minute I’m home and not sleeping. Shutting off like that could be very annoying. Have you checked to see if others are having this issue?

There is no way in hell I would keep an amp that goes in protect mode. If my Rotel did this when it was new it would have gone back where it came from, period.

Out of curiosity, are you M80s set to full-range (large) or with a cross-over (small)?

Hmmm...sounds like you need to check the 12v switch setup in the On Screen Menu. I know my NAD has defeatable 12v input settings, etc. It is also possible that you had too much on the breaker....although I have my entire family room setup (NAD Separates (140x7 all channels driven at the same time), Servo 15 sub, 6 recessed can lights, fan, 2 large cansiter filters for the 75g cichlid tank, and some other things on the same breaker and my NAD and has never shut down - and that would include running for extended times at 100db plus (parties, etc). IN fact, my amp has never, ever, even been more then 10 degrees warmer then the ambient temp. I do agree they seem to give a lot of bang for the buck, but perhaps the reduced cost is due to a reason? I agree with above, I would not keep an amp that kept shutting down