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$500 amplifiers to test and review?

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amirm

amirm

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Oh, the Emotiva has two internal fans:

a300_top-1.png


Bummer.
 
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Wombat

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oivavoi

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I've got three in my home system, and two more used for occasional PA, and never had a problem with any of them. They operate in Class AB, and have been totally reliable for about 5 years now.

My own measurements show that their spec is a bit optimistic in a couple of areas, but nothing to worry about. Safety-wise they look fine, properly earthed and with decent commercial quality components used. I've seen the various reports, both The Audio Critic and the Matrix Audio ones, but it would be really interesting for me to see something more comprehensive than the AC.

I like the metering, and the comprehensive I/O arrangements, and that it seems properly protected, at least, one of mine suffered no damage when I put a screwdriver across the output at full power. Big flash but no damage to the amp....the screwdriver was never the same again.

S

I had one before going fully active, and was happy. The only thing is that it became audibly noisy if I turned the gain more than half way. How are yours in that regard?

However, I recommended it to a friend with an active 4 way system, who bought four. Two of them blew his tweeters without him playing too loud (or so he says), and in the end three failed on him completely... I bought him some beers and chocolate to try and cheer him up again.
 

Blumlein 88

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Oh, the Emotiva has two internal fans:

a300_top-1.png


Bummer.
What Emotiva says about the amps. Apparently fans were needed to pass FTC power testing, and reports from users are they nearly never turn on.

Hi kids,
The BasX amplifiers are derived from the XPA circuit topology. They are signifigantly improved from the previous Ultra Series amplifiers. Noise, THD, and overall build quality are improved. All PCB's are now double sided FR-4 material.

I think the BasX amplifiers are great! I'm really proud of them, and at their price points, they have no real competition. BTW, the output stage is a fully complementary, discrete darlington design and uses the same high speed, high current ON Semiconductor power devices as the XPA Series. The cooling fans RAREY operate. They are there primarily to pass CE and FTC heat soak preconditioning tests. They are also handy if the amps are mounted in an area without proper ventilation. During normal operation, you will not normally see them turn on.

Happy listening,
Big Dan


Dan Laufman
President
Emotiva Audio Corporation
 

jhaider

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The Parasound Zonemaster 250 would be interesting to me. I believe they use the Anaview Class D modules, possibly the same ones as the PS Sprout. I have not seen them tested elsewhere. I think the Sprout was let down by bad choices in front of the module.

No volume knob, but attenuators on the back.

http://www.parasound.com/250.php
 

sergeauckland

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I had one before going fully active, and was happy. The only thing is that it became audibly noisy if I turned the gain more than half way. How are yours in that regard?

However, I recommended it to a friend with an active 4 way system, who bought four. Two of them blew his tweeters without him playing too loud (or so he says), and in the end three failed on him completely... I bought him some beers and chocolate to try and cheer him up again.
I use mine with the gain controls all at maximum, so that I have a known and fixed amount of gain, and adjust the individual levels on the crossover.
As to noise, my midrange units have a sensitivity of 93dB ( Tweeters 88dB, bass 86dB) and don't get any hiss audible unless my ear's close to the driver. I did get a small amount of buzz on the midrange, cured by increasing the size of the reservoir caps. In the passive version of the 801, the midrange and tweeter are attenuated relative to the bass, but with an active 'speaker, there's no crossover to attenuate any noise, so the buzz was just audible.

Although the A500 is AC coupled to the load, that's through the main reservoirs, so quite enough energy to destroy tweeters, I fitted some series capacitors as protection to the mid and tweeters. The bass unit is big enough to stand DC until the fuses blow, the tweeters wouldn't.

The danger of an amplifier going DC exists with any active 'speaker so protection is necessary. A higher priced amplifier would probably have DC sensing relays that disconnect the load, that's one of the things that an amplifier that cheap lacks.

S
 

drconopoima

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So we are doing a ton of source (DAC) reviews. I think we need to fill that in with at least an amplifier or two.

What are some reasonably priced ones that should be measured but have not been?

Examples I am thinking about are PS Audio Sprout. That one has been reviewed and unfortunately has less than good measurements: https://www.stereophile.com/content/ps-audio-sprout-integrated-amplifier-measurements

Are chinese companies doing decent job here?

What's worth testing?

After hard looking for options the only Chinese company with products that have lower than 2OHM output impedance that NWAVGuy preached as a very important specification is Fiio. As such, the Fiio K5 gets my vote as an interesting option to test. It's the second amplifier I've got, after the iFi iCan Nano that didn't quite impress me with its power or published THD specifications and I wanted a better product to compare it to see if those shortcomings were audible (I've only noticed a little bit more noise on the iFi when nothing is playing and I turn the volume all the way up, vs the Fiio K5 that I can push all the way up in high gain and I hear nothing).

The Fiio K5 is also an interesting product by itself, in that is available on Amazon worldwide and can dock with Fiio DAPs and the Dac/Amp E17K. In the future, I may be interested in buying an E17K and test and report my experience.
 
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Frank Dernie

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After hard looking for options the only Chinese company with products that have lower than 2OHM output impedance that NWAVGuy preached as a very important specification is Fiio. As such, the Fiio K5 gets my vote as an interesting option to test (it's the second amplifier I've got, after the iFi iCan Nano that didn't quite impress me with its power or published THD specifications and I wanted a better product to compare it to see if those shortcomings were audible (I've only noticed a little bit more noise on the iFi when nothing is playing and I turn the volume all the way up, vs the Fiio K5 that I can push all the way up in high gain and I hear nothing.

The Fiio K5 is also an interesting product by itself, in that is available in Amazon worldwide and can dock with Fiio DAPs and the Dac/Amp E17K. In the future I may be interested in buying an E17K and test and report my experience.
Aren't these just headphone amps?
2 ohms is too high for a normal amp driving speakers IMO.
I bet none of the other suggestions have output impedance that high.
 
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amirm

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The Fiio K5 is also an interesting product by itself, in that is available in Amazon worldwide and can dock with Fiio DAPs and the Dac/Amp E17K. In the future I may be interested in buying an E17K and test and report my experience.
That would be great. As noted though and my bad for not being more clear, in this thread we are trying to see if we can identify some budget amplifiers for driving speakers, not headphones. Someone asked a recommendation for a complete system and I was not sure what to suggest for the amplifier.
 

drconopoima

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Aren't these just headphone amps?
2 ohms is too high for a normal amp driving speakers IMO.
I bet none of the other suggestions have output impedance that high.

Yes, I suggested only headphone amps. Good speaker amps are out of my price range and limitations (not a home owner, I have roomates).
 

stunta

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Amir, can you be more specific - a $500 amp to drive what speakers? Its probably not too hard to find an NAD amp for this price, but its pointless in the context of a difficult load like B&W 800 series for instance.

https://www.ghentaudio.com/amp/ga-s125p.html - I think this is an interesting class D amp built using IcePower modules. Its compact, has XLR inputs and is so tempting to just buy even though I have no real use for it right now at its power rating.

EDIT: IcePower gets bad-mouthed a lot by Hypex fanboys but a few well-regarded hifi shops use these modules so it shouldn't be that bad and would be very interesting to measure. Bel Canto uses IcePower and I've heard good things about their amps, but never actually heard them.

Btw, I have the Emotiva A-300 (and also the A-100). The 300 is great with my ATC SCM7 (small bookshelves) but struggles to drive the SCM19. I kept the A-300 for the den to watch TV. The A-300 fans shouldn't be running under normal use. I have never heard them run. At the price, I think its very good value given its a class A/B amp but it is not as transparent as the Hypex NCores for instance. 12V trigger is nice to have. I did some research to find a replacement at a similar price point/power output in a smaller form factor but couldn't find anything. Apparently toroidal transformers are cheaper than decent SMPS. The A-300 is not a balanced design AFAIK and does not have XLR outputs. So the pricing is not surprising given its an Emotiva.
 

stunta

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That's a good candidate. I wish it was an integrated amp so that we could use DACs without volume control but I will put this on my potentials.

Is there a problem with using software volume control and having the DAC talk to the amp directly?
 
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amirm

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Is there a problem with using software volume control and having the DAC talk to the amp directly?
I am not a fan of it. It is hard to adjust on touchscreens. I like a remote so that I can quickly adjust the level.

The other problem is accidental level. With a normal remote controlled amp, the levels are never at 100% whereas this can easily happen with software level controls.
 

stunta

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I am not a fan of it. It is hard to adjust on touchscreens. I like a remote so that I can quickly adjust the level.

The other problem is accidental level. With a normal remote controlled amp, the levels are never at 100% whereas this can easily happen with software level controls.

Roon has an option to limit the volume slider. I have mine set to 50 and beyond that I can only increase the volume by tapping on the + button.
 
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amirm

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Hi there. Welcome aboard and thanks for the suggestions. No, I have not tried them. Amazing bargains if they sound good and do what they say. Since the FX-Audio D802 was cheaper and available on Amazon, I went ahead and ordered that one. :)
 
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