Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Emotiva XMC-1 (Finally) Ships!

In addition to the unusual length of time it took to bring this product to market, during its development it went through TWO significant price increases starting at what was the originally announced $1199 ultimately ending up at $1999 which started to bring it in to the realm of well established manufacturers, to me, too expensive for a brand new product from a small company, even though it ended up being manufactured in the U.S. I wanted to buy a new Pre-Pro last fall, however, rather than wait what seemed to be forever for the XMC-1, I spent another $500 and bought the Yamaha CX-A 5000 Pre-Pro, ultimately, I believe a wiser investment.

I believe that the PEQ is the deciding factor for a lot of the EMO fans. The PEQ is a really nice feature and it has a lot of room for adjustment. Dirac also seems to be highly anticipated. I am on the fence still since Dolby PL IIz is not available and rear surrounds are not on my short list. Perhaps I will wait for the RMC though that could well be 5 years away . I looked at the Yamaha as well and its a nice unit but still pricey for a working class guy like me. With Emotiva you either like the styling of you don't. I really like the looks of the krell but 6500 is way lots to much plus another 2500 to upgrade to 4k .

The hype is partly because Emotiva has quite a large online following. Certainly another big factor is that the XMC-1 was originally announced long ago - is it over two years now? There seemed to be a big build up from Emotiva each year with promises of 'it will be shipping later this year'. There were many delays caused by incorporating new features or changing the room correction technology, etc.

At least Emo has finally released it. Outlaw had a similar product that was announced and being worked on for quite a while but it eventually got cancelled. Pre-processors and receivers, it seems, can be quite a challenge for smaller companies to produce!

Anyway, despite the hype, the XMC-1 is supposed to be a more affordable pre-pro with XLR support and high quality components such as a toroidal power supply. Most mass-produced AVR's do not have these any more, so theoretically the sound quality from the XMC-1 should be better.

The eager EMO's started reserving back in 2008