This is a review and detailed measurements of the Emotiva PA-1 monoblock class D amplifier. It is on kind loan from a member and unfortunately discontinued. When it was being sold, it cost $299.
There is not much to look at here other than a blue indicator for when the unit is on:
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It is a balanced amplifier which is nice:
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There is an automatic trigger as you see. I tested it using always-on mode.
I believe this is based on some ICEPower module from B&O (300AS1?). In use the PA-1 didn't even get warm to touch. Protection circuit was very good in that if you overload it, it clips but keeps going. Other amps shut down requiring power cycling and such which an become annoying in my testing.
Emotiva PA-1 Measurements
Our standard dashboard of 5 watts into 4 ohm (1 kHz tone) shows very good performance:
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Distortion is at -100 dB which is quite nice making SINAD around 92 dB:
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This is well above our average of 78 across nearly 140 amplifiers tested to date.
SNR is very good nearly matching my target of 96 dB at 5 watts:
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Multitone shows the same good performance:
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Frequency response unfortunately shows dependency on speaker impedance:
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Power into 4 ohm shows early rise of distortion:
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I cut off the power early in that graph. If one allows it to go higher in distortion it produces a lot more power:
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Switching to 8 ohm we get:
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Changing frequency shows what non-state-of-the-art class Ds produce:
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Namely a transfer function that changes with frequency and much higher distortion.
Here is the spectrum of the switching frequency:
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Conclusions
It is hard to get perfection at this price point but the Emotiva PA-1 tries hard. It is a small package that runs cool yet produces well above average noise and distortion ratings. It is a shame it is discontinued.
I am going to put the Emotiva PA-1 on my recommended list. Hopefully you can find some in second hand market or something.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Crappy weekend... Been running around with my head cut off between garden chores and reviews and get this citation in the mail. The offence? Going 26 miles an hour in 20 mile speed limit street (camera ticket)! It was a school zone and I remember slamming on my breaks as soon as I approached the blinking light. How the heck does one trust the speedometer that accurately at 20 mph? Try to pay it online and they want an extra $9 if I do it that way versus mailing a check! What losers. They rather process a paper check?
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