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Emotiva XPA-DR2 Review (Stereo Power Amplifier)

Alice of Old Vincennes

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I have my XPA-1 gen 2 - which uses a torroid rather than a switching supply and doesn't have rail switching. I love it. Sounds fantastic to me. Best amp I've heard to date. Able to produce powerful dynamics during listening. I doubt its distortion figures are much better though. It probably also has a large 60hz bump. :)
Problems started with rail switching.
 

Alice of Old Vincennes

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This Amp has very low noise, It has high distortion, distortion is a much les straight Black/White Audible/transparent Pass/fail metric than noise. And I'm not saying it is not audible, I believe it is, I care, but many may not. I personally have a few vintage receiver in B systems, or lent to my friends that sound very good to my ears and are in this ballpark of distortion, or worse. The only thing I can say is that there are not as High fidelity, finesse, realism, impact, are all subjective terms that don't relate to measurments, neither it relates to fidelity.
Oh really. Distortion is a big deal.
 

Tks

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If something like this can provide a relatively flat FR, safe to say anyone talking about hearing DAC differences is either deluded by placebo, or this industry is plauged by sample varience that are so bad, it makes you wonder just how bad manufacturing tolerances are (meaning, all Amir gets is golden samples).

Really perplexing
 

DonH56

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Amir's samples are provided by readers (members) so almost certainly not golden samples.
 

beefkabob

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So high distortion, so bad multitone result. I am used to get distortions like this from tube amplifiers, not from solid state :facepalm:.
Massive power and a tube sound, all for a bargain price.
 

DonH56

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It is not "tube sound", just poor distortion performance. I'm curious to see what Emotiva has to say, but one does have to wonder about their 0.1% THD spec and if this is typical performance.
 

wwenze

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Reenactment of me visiting ASR today:

"Oh hey there is Emotiva XPA that's a good amplifier that's recommended Amir gave it a shrugging panther I wonder what's the issue probably something minor OH MY GAWD"
 

Koeitje

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Wow, that guy is truly a clown. He works for Emotiva, saying that the numbers aren't everything? This is class D PA amplifier level of performance, which is 180 degrees opposite what Emotiva claims about this amplifier. So Amir is the bad one of showing that Emotiva's marketing speak holds no value? If any of these problems are audible doesn't even matter, if I buy an amplifier on the promise of getting high fidelity performance and I don't get it I'm pissed.
 

strummr

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I've owned plenty of Emotiva amps (including their discontinued class A monoblocks), and currently use the XPA-3 G3 for the LCR channels of my HT system. As plenty have noted, I'm partly the 'target' consumer, as the main things for consideration was: more power (over the main Marantz SR7013 AVR), and reliability for my HT system. My HT space is med/lg sized and didn't like driving 7.2.2 speakers with just the Marantz. Unlike some that posted, I've had 100% reliability with Emotiva gear - so in my mind, the concept of high-power, reliability and value were met. (I'm glad I didn't upgrade to the DR series though) But worthy of noting on the power discussion, for my critical listening system - where I've gone through countless 'big-budget' equipment - I'm currently running a March Purifi amp (most recently prior, Bryston 7B3 monoblocks), driving very difficult speakers - the power seems easily 2-3 times more than the Emo with the Purifi, and as another level of disappointment, the XPA-3 doesn't seem more powerful even over the base AVR.
 

RichB

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Someone, please educate (i.e., explain to) me. Thanks.

ATI AT4000/AT6000 amplifiers are bridged-balanced. The benefits are increased power and some potential reduction in odd harmonics.
There are benefits in power production.

Perhaps, what @amirm is getting at is differential is not required to make a low noise low distortion amp.

- Rich
 

anphex

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"However note that his finding says nothing about what the XPA-DR sounds like... " KeithL

If it's the very noticable compressed sound they mean then yeah, good that Amir couldn't measure that. The XPA3 had it and I bet the DR2 too since it's more or less the same modules in a differential setting. If I still had the Emotiva XPA3 I'd even invite Emotiva here prove it.

Edit. Thinking about it, @amirm would it be possible to make such a measurement? Send an input signal with a large spike and see if the amp is able to reproduce that spike? I swear the XPA3 cut off every transient I threw at it, working like a 3:1 compressor.
 
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MaxBuck

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Over a kilowatt of power and cheap.

Not something I personally would want, but seems generally like a more rational purchase than most tube amps.
 

welsh

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I note that you didn't remove the "Please remove before use" sticker. I mean, c'mon, they said "please." Yet I suspect you nevertheless cut the warning tags of sofa cushions. Some people are just ornery.

Maybe that would make a racy t-shirt for the party-going crowd. Or a very disturbing tatoo. I'll stick with my friend's suggestion of "Not to be used as a personal floatation device."
I once knew somebody who had DNR (do not resuscitate) tattooed on his chest…
 

welsh

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Perhaps, they should move to "reimagine image high-end". We all know that things go the hell in a handbasket when they are reimagined :p

- Rich
Most of the snake-oil peddlers of the audio market seem to routinely ‘reimagine’ physics itself.
 
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