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Emotiva PA-1 Review (Amplifier)

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amirm

amirm

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Washington has great traffic lawyers that will keep this off your record for a fee. More expensive than paying, but in the long run it keeps your record clean and insurance lower.
We do. Thankfully it says that being an automated ticket, it won't go on my record.
 

dorirod

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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?

Offtopic, but you should be able to fight that. I have no idea how camera tickets are valid anyway. Can you confront your accuser? Can they tell it was you and not someone else in your car? When did they last calibrate their cameras, etc. anyway? Here in FL it's huge business, you pay various companies $100 and they fight it for you. Cheaper than the ticket usually, but still sucks. I think they made camera tickets invalid after some legal fights.
 

peanuts

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i dont understand why input impedance is never measured? icepower can get very bad in that regard...
 

Thomas_A

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Just pay it. It will be a reminder. Next time could be much more serious.
 

peniku8

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Yeah. About 1Vrms of nice 450kHz sub AM-MW frequency. What a shame the designers cannot make anything better than a dumb simple LC. And this goes to the speaker wire.
Where do you see 1Vrms? The dashboard pics are taken at 5W@4R, which is ~4,5V for the fundamental (1k). The switching frequency is 14db down from that, which means it's playing at ... alright I just did the math after I started writing this post it and it's actually 0,9V. I successfully confused myself *facepalm*.
That's a bit more than I expected, but in the end it's just a fraction of a watt of heat buildup in your speakers. The skin effect might even be at play here, which would filter the switching frequency out (a few dbs maybe, I'm not sure), unless you're using "audiophile" extra thick silver plated cables.
If the volt meter on my pmillett SCI is correct, the Hypex amps output ~0,2V of HF noise.
Would be interesting to see Amir measure this amp with 10m of regular speaker wire to see how much the switching frequency would be attenuated.
 

thunderchicken

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We do. Thankfully it says that being an automated ticket, it won't go on my record.

I happen to be a criminal defense attorney- my firm has offices in Bellevue and Kent, and I happen to know who handles most of the infractions. Hint: it's me.
 

AudioSceptic

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It is an odd thing for Emotiva to sell. They add no value after the box and connectors. Maybe that is one reason they have moved on and no longer offer it.
At the high performance end I have a feeling we will be waiting for the nCore patents to expire before we see real competition in class D. They nailed how to do it right, and there hasn’t been much since.
Does nCore include Purifi or is that another type of Class D?
 

MASKINEN

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I had one of these, actually two that was tested to my front Canton speakers. They sounded good but a bit harsh on high volume with rock music. Had one of them for my center speaker a while but sold it and bought an Emotiva XPA-3 Gen 3. It sounds really good.
 

MerlinGS

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We do. Thankfully it says that being an automated ticket, it won't go on my record.
I apologize for the tangent. I am not familiar with Washington state, but in theory, this should most often be the case since in most cases photo evidence is not able to identify the driver with clear certainty. As to @dorirod's point, the strategy he describes is used in virtually all defenses regarding traffic infractions involving speeding. In many jurisdictions, calibration seems to be a go-to defense.
 

restorer-john

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In many jurisdictions, calibration seems to be a go-to defense.

As in calibration of the camera/system? Over here they had them declared "scientific instruments" at one point so they couldn't be challenged on accuracy. That was years ago.

Recently red-light cameras in one of our states had tens of thousands of fines called into doubt due to the fact they had not tested actual cars going through the red light on a regular basis.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10...-because-camera-not-tested-correctly/12735108
 
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GWolfman

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I was a bit surprised at the showing, as Emotiva usually has high mains noise in the output. Come to find out it's a drop-in third-party part, no wonder the "improvement." I generally like their ideology and product offerings and price, but (a guess on my part that) a little bit more engineering wouldn't hurt or raise prices to "clean up" their act (e.g., noise).

Amir, sorry to hear about the bummer weekend.
 
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amirm

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Offtopic, but you should be able to fight that. I have no idea how camera tickets are valid anyway. Can you confront your accuser? Can they tell it was you and not someone else in your car? When did they last calibrate their cameras, etc. anyway? Here in FL it's huge business, you pay various companies $100 and they fight it for you. Cheaper than the ticket usually, but still sucks. I think they made camera tickets invalid after some legal fights.
I am sure there is an option to fight it but it is not worth the aggravation. I fought a parking ticket in Seattle once. Paid the meter and put the receipt in the window. Got a ticket saying I put it on the wrong side/window! Bastards! Decided to fight it. I go to the courthouse and it has no parking. Had to pay something $40 for parking! Go in, wait 2 hours. The retired judge that was adjudicating it grilled me left and right as if I was a criminal. I pushed back saying I had paid for the darn parking. Why would I get penalized this way and not just given a warning? He calmed down and said since my record was clean, he would throw it out. Half a day gone when including the driving back and forth.

The lawyers here are very good. They charge $300 though and can just about get any ticket thrown out. No idea how they are so successful. In this case though it wasn't worth it.
 
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amirm

amirm

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I happen to be a criminal defense attorney- my firm has offices in Bellevue and Kent, and I happen to know who handles most of the infractions. Hint: it's me.
Ah, good to know! :) The ticket was in Kirkland actually as I was driving through. Even though it was school zone, there was not a child in sight (likely due to covid). I have gone through that street a million times. I always go extremely slow. It did not have a camera before. they must have added it.
 

Matias

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Does nCore include Purifi or is that another type of Class D?
Hypex is a company owning the NCore technology.
Purifi is another company owning the Eigentakt technology.
Bruno Putzeys was the designer employed by the first, and left to co-found the second, so that Eigentakt is a refinement of his previous NCore.
 

Rottmannash

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I had one of these, actually two that was tested to my front Canton speakers. They sounded good but a bit harsh on high volume with rock music. Had one of them for my center speaker a while but sold it and bought an Emotiva XPA-3 Gen 3. It sounds really good.
It's interesting you say that-that was my subjective impression as well. I wonder if the measurements reflect what we heard or if it's some other issue. At normal volumes they sound perfectly neutral but w/ hard rock particularly it became painful at loud volumes.
 

Alice of Old Vincennes

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Actually the reason they sold it in the first place was (IIRC at least) they got a warehouse liquidation of the ICEPower boards - and it happened at a time when they were pursuing an option for the preamp and DAC which were in that product line. I think there wasn't really any intention of keeping the product alive after they'd worked through that inventory... after all, it's competitive with their in-house "budget" line but a nicer form-factor (at least IMO) and at a lower price-per-watt.
Guess that's what happened to XPR line. Suddenly disappeared without explanation. I use XPR 5 as paper weight in case of tornado.
 
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