Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Emotiva Setup

I intend to build up the Epic-80.180.500. Wondering which should be a better combination of Emotiva amps (with a flexibility to upgrade to 7.1 ch):

1. XPA 2 + UPA 5 OR
2. XPA 3 + UPA 5

Considering that I'll start with m80's, would the headroom provided by XPA 3 be enough to get the best sound out of M80's (and VP180) or should XPA 2 be my choice. My setup will be used for 70% music and 30 movies.

Thanks

I power my m80's 150 and qs8's with a xpa5 and it sounds great.
Either way would work but if music is 70% of your listening in stereo I would get the xpa2. (its probably overkill though) If the setup was more for theater I would get the xpa3
If you have the money and the circuitry capacity I'd wait for the XPR7

I would consider Outlaw Audio amps as well, as they have a much better track record with the M80's. How big is your room and how loud do you listen?

The difference in power from the XPA 2 to the 3 I would estimate about 3db give or take depending on room, listening distance etc. I would go with the XPA 3 just have the center with the same power as the mains.

Sarang, "headroom" doesn't help to get the best sound out of the M80s or any other speaker. You should calculate the maximum volume level that you'll be hitting on brief peaks and should have a maximum amplifier output capability that can handle it. No additional headroom beyond this is either necessary or helpful.

I like to think of that 'headroom' as future proofing for a bigger room where I could then make use of it

I like to think of headroom as safety margin as long as it does not come at a large cost penalty.

You don't red-line your car all the time either.

I feel that if you don't have head room, you have limitations that will impact the sound in some audible fashion.

Why? If you're not hitting your head, it doesn't matter if you've got 1 foot or 10 feet of headroom.

One thing I think though, is that momentary clipping is more common than people realize, and that the recovery from a clip varies from amp design to design.

In that case though it's not headroom, but used power.

But your probably ARE hitting your head.