|
|
Post by greg121986 on Jul 30, 2013 7:34:44 GMT -5
I just ordered an XPA5 Gen 2. My first Emotiva piece. I have an Anthem PVA7 and Electrocompaniet ECI MK5 to compare it to. Using Oppo BDP-105 as pre-pro. Speakers are Swan Diva 6.2F, Vienna Acoustics Maestro Grand, and Swan M1 as rears.
|
|
|
|
Post by jking on Aug 6, 2013 11:47:25 GMT -5
Or how about having the old trim available for changing X__G2 to match X--G1. Actually I'm not too happy that any new Emotiva stuff that I buy will not match the old. I have a considerable investment in Emotiva products and I feel that changes like this are fickle and rather abandoning of the faithful past customers. Decorative features like this never, read me NEVER, please everyone. Best to stick with an 'mo' like McIntosh has through the years. here a post from the first page Ok. Briefly. The Gen 2 has a new topology and the internals are improved...in too many ways to describe...Dan did a better job at talking than i did listening. The silver trims are optional now...and included. They looked very nice. They are shipping in a few weeks...so start getting worked about them now. Cost increase will be slight. NO XMC news. Sherbourn receiver is a UMC-200 with 80/ch all driven built in. Sounded nice, too. More later, thumbs tired. See my LINK in initial post, Sorry bout FB, it was my only option for nowww jm |
|
|
|
Post by jking on Aug 6, 2013 11:52:43 GMT -5
With the Sherbourn now being morphed into Emotiva nothing will match the 7-350 I just bought for twice as much as they are selling for today. I guess I will have to hide it in the closet and hide my wallet so next time I will think twice about why I paid almost 2 grand on an amp that less then 2 months later is only 1 grand. Great way to run a company.
|
|
hemster
Global Moderator 
Particle Manufacturer
...still listening... still watching
Posts: 51,920
|
Post by hemster on Aug 6, 2013 13:10:43 GMT -5
With the Sherbourn now being morphed into Emotiva nothing will match the 7-350 I just bought for twice as much as they are selling for today. I guess I will have to hide it in the closet and hide my wallet so next time I will think twice about why I paid almost 2 grand on an amp that less then 2 months later is only 1 grand. Great way to run a company. Congrats, you got a heck of an amp for a great price. Sure it was not as cheap as you would buy it today but sales are a part of life. This applies to any company and is no reflection on how a company is run. Enjoy your amp, it's likely you'll never have to upgrade or replace it - so stop looking at amp prices and cue up some tunes... blues perhaps?  |
|
|
|
Post by aztecax on Aug 6, 2013 14:15:27 GMT -5
With the Sherbourn now being morphed into Emotiva nothing will match the 7-350 I just bought for twice as much as they are selling for today. I guess I will have to hide it in the closet and hide my wallet so next time I will think twice about why I paid almost 2 grand on an amp that less then 2 months later is only 1 grand. Great way to run a company. While I feel your pain, someone always buys a product the day before a new sale or new product, or just in time for the return period to be over when the sale or new product is revealed. Should they just not progress forward? I'd be dreaming of what I could've done with that extra money, no doubt, but you thought it was a good product at the price you bought it at and you were probably right! I'm sure when the 7-350 came out someone said "damn, I just bought ____." Doesn't mean it shouldn't have come out! Plus you really shouldn't need to upgrade that, like, ever. So go crank it up! |
|
|
|
Post by drtrey3 on Aug 6, 2013 14:15:29 GMT -5
Blues perhaps? THAT is funny.
Trey
|
|
|
|
Post by garbulky on Aug 6, 2013 18:09:58 GMT -5
What was Emotiva thinking offering a 3850 watt @ 4 ohms 7 channel amp for $1000?! Or for 2k for that matter. They should definitely schedule company mergers around customers buying decisions and definitely not offer cheap prices ever.
(That's just a joke, not meant to be mean. - I do understand your frustration though you still definitely got your money's worth IMO. Try finding another amp like that at 2k.)
On a more serious note ... if you purchased it really close to the sale date, you could call emotiva and sort of complain a bit. It's not unheard of for them to offer you "emo-bucks"/credit but it's not a guarantee either.
|
|
|
|
Post by greg121986 on Aug 7, 2013 15:54:04 GMT -5
I received my XPA 5 Gen 2. It did not come with silver trim. I'm not sure why someone was saying they come with it, it certainly did not. I much prefer the black look.
I am still on the fence about this amp. It is very noisy. I tried plugging it directly into the wall and into my Furman PST6. You cannot hear it until you're about 2-3 feet from the amp but it really bothers me. I would loosely estimate that the Emotiva seems twice as noisy compared to the Anthem PVA7 and 3 times as noisy as the Electrocompaniet to my ears.
That said, the Emotiva sounds better than the Anthem PVA7. Sound staging is far better, detail, transparency, and bass is far better. But, I am not sure if I can live with the noise.
The Electrocompaniet blows the Emotiva out of the water for transparency, detail, and imaging, but that might have something to do with its internal pre-amp being fed by the balanced DAC line out of my Oppo. I am using the Oppo BDP-105 as a pre-amp/DAC into the XPA5 Gen 2, and I'd be willing to bet that if I had a good pre-amp to compare both, it would be a much closer comparison.
|
|
novisnick
EmoPhile
CEO Secret Monoblock Society
Posts: 27,222 
|
Post by novisnick on Aug 7, 2013 16:45:43 GMT -5
I received my XPA 5 Gen 2. It did not come with silver trim. I'm not sure why someone was saying they come with it, it certainly did not. I much prefer the black look. I am still on the fence about this amp. It is very noisy. I tried plugging it directly into the wall and into my Furman PST6. You cannot hear it until you're about 2-3 feet from the amp but it really bothers me. I would loosely estimate that the Emotiva seems twice as noisy compared to the Anthem PVA7 and 3 times as noisy as the Electrocompaniet to my ears. That said, the Emotiva sounds better than the Anthem PVA7. Sound staging is far better, detail, transparency, and bass is far better. But, I am not sure if I can live with the noise. The Electrocompaniet blows the Emotiva out of the water for transparency, detail, and imaging, but that might have something to do with its internal pre-amp being fed by the balanced DAC line out of my Oppo. I am using the Oppo BDP-105 as a pre-amp/DAC into the XPA5 Gen 2, and I'd be willing to bet that if I had a good pre-amp to compare both, it would be a much closer comparison. My XPA 5 Gen 2 is as quiet as a sleeping baby. At first I had some noise but eliminated it with a different cable going to the speaker making the buzz.  |
|
|
|
Post by AudioHTIT on Aug 7, 2013 18:58:02 GMT -5
I received my XPA 5 Gen 2. It did not come with silver trim. I'm not sure why someone was saying they come with it, it certainly did not. I much prefer the black look. At first it sounded like you'd get both black & silver, later they said something like "silver trim will be available for those who want to match their gen 1 equipment". I guess you'll have to call if you want the silver. You say it gets noisy when you're close to the amp, do you mean mechanical vibration from the amp, or noise / hiss from the speakers? |
|
|
|
Post by greg121986 on Aug 7, 2013 21:15:08 GMT -5
The sound I hear is hiss from the tweeter. I checked all 5 channels and it is coming from the tweeter of each speaker. There is a bit of crackling in there as well, but it's mostly hiss. It is very noticeable in the Emotiva. The Anthem has a light hiss. The Electrocompaniet has just the smallest amount of hiss but you really need to have it quiet in the room to hear it.
|
|
|
|
Post by AudioHTIT on Aug 8, 2013 10:29:01 GMT -5
The sound I hear is hiss from the tweeter. I checked all 5 channels and it is coming from the tweeter of each speaker. There is a bit of crackling in there as well, but it's mostly hiss. It is very noticeable in the Emotiva. The Anthem has a light hiss. The Electrocompaniet has just the smallest amount of hiss but you really need to have it quiet in the room to hear it. I know you've compared to other amps, but have you tried disconnecting the input cables from the amp (or better yet shorting them) to eliminate any noise coming from upstream? |
|
|
|
Post by dust770 on Aug 8, 2013 13:06:49 GMT -5
The sound I hear is hiss from the tweeter. I checked all 5 channels and it is coming from the tweeter of each speaker. There is a bit of crackling in there as well, but it's mostly hiss. It is very noticeable in the Emotiva. The Anthem has a light hiss. The Electrocompaniet has just the smallest amount of hiss but you really need to have it quiet in the room to hear it. I recently added a dayton audio 500 watt sub amp to my system and right when I plugged it into the wall I noticed this same hissing from all the tweets. I did some shifting around from outlet to outlet and in the end I just had to get a new set of rca jacks, problem solved. |
|
novisnick
EmoPhile
CEO Secret Monoblock Society
Posts: 27,222
|
Post by novisnick on Aug 8, 2013 14:20:59 GMT -5
Replace RCA s,,,,,,, I said that how many posts ago. LOL
|
|
SuperComplex
Minor Hero
Looking for a new processor
Posts: 75
|
Post by SuperComplex on Aug 8, 2013 15:10:21 GMT -5
I just ordered an XPA5 Gen 2. My first Emotiva piece. I have an Anthem PVA7 and Electrocompaniet ECI MK5 to compare it to. Using Oppo BDP-105 as pre-pro. Speakers are Swan Diva 6.2F, Vienna Acoustics Maestro Grand, and Swan M1 as rears. I was thinking about using my Oppo 103 for a pre-pro, How does it sound? |
|
|
|
Post by greg121986 on Aug 8, 2013 19:00:57 GMT -5
I've disconnected one of the channels from a balanced connection and the noise still exists. I don't have shorting plugs so I cannot easily short the inputs. The interconnects I'm using are Neotech cable terminated by me to single ended rca. They emit the same noise as the Crimson Audio balanced interconnects that I'm using for left and right. I have to do more to isolate the cause of the noise this weekend. Simply put the Oppo BDP 103 is not as good of a preamp as the BDP 105. I had the BDP 103 for 3 weeks and returned it for the BDP 105. Based on my Anthem PVA7, the BDP 103 left a lot to be desired in the way of transparency and detail. It sounded great but it was only a little better than the B&K Reference 50 S2 that it should have replaced. The BDP 105 was an enormous jump from the B&K and one that made me justify its price. I use most of its major functions pre amp, DAC, Netflix, YouTube, Pandora, USB audio, and network media streamer. It's really nice to have such high quality and useful features coming from a single device. There have been some firmware issues namely with Netflix freezing bit Oppo has done a good job releasing updates every few months. It is also difficult to get the setup correct if you don't have a buddy to help you with a tape measure to get the speaker distances right. But after its dialed in the sound is fantastic. But this isn't the Oppp BDP xxx thread.  |
|
|
|
Post by dust770 on Aug 8, 2013 19:51:09 GMT -5
Replace RCA s,,,,,,, I said that how many posts ago. LOL lol, dont know how I missed that  |
|
novisnick
EmoPhile
CEO Secret Monoblock Society
Posts: 27,222
|
Post by novisnick on Aug 8, 2013 20:40:40 GMT -5
Drove me crazy, short trip, LOL , but before I moved 74 lbs back to shelf there was no way I wasn't going to track that down. I have too many Zu cable around to let that happen. Don't know why there wasn't one there to start with, Oh well, Later I found I swapped my hdmi cables on my Oppo, took a little more brain time to fix that one.
|
|
|
|
Post by greg121986 on Aug 12, 2013 15:19:53 GMT -5
I took my XPA5 Gen 2, Anthem PVA7, and Eletrocompaniet ECI MKII to my buddy's house to try it out against his Rogue Audio Chronus Magnum tube amp and Kudos Cardea C30 speakers. I have listened to the Chronus Magnum and C30 combo for dozens of hours, as well as the C30 on McIntosh, MSB, and VTL gear. I used a combination of power cables, single ended RCA, and balanced interconnects from my Oppo BDP-105. Source material was PCM and DSD from DSF files.
I was first trying to narrow down the noise issue with the XPA5 Gen 2. I determined that the amp just has more noise than I am accustom to. The Anthem PVA7 and the Electrocompaniet ECI MKII are dead silent by comparison. The Rogue Chronus Magnum was slightly less noisy than the Emotiva. I also found that there was transformer hum coming from the XPA5 Gen 2 amp itself. This was the deciding factor in prompting me to return the amp. The XPA5 Gen 2 has several great things going for it, but it doesn't completely fit my needs.
Based on my short time with the XPA5 Gen 2, the build quality and overall design is 110% of what I would expect. The highlight for me is the solidly constructed and even more solidly mounted RCA connections. I like to wrench down tightly on my locking RCA connectors and it's a very impressive feature to have hard mounted RCA posts instead of PCB mounted types like all the other guys. The overall chassis is also incredibly solid. I never felt like the amp was made of cheap materials, unlike the Parasound amps that I have encountered.
Despite the noise, the Emotiva sounded better than the Anthem. But it was nowhere close to the transparency, detail, and accuracy of the Electrocompaniet or the Rogue. Oddly enough with the Kudos C30, the bass from the Emotiva had a lot less impact compared to the Electrocompaniet or the Rogue despite its gobs of power. But, on my Swan Diva 6.2F at home, the bass is great with the Emotiva. I felt that the sound staging, transparency, and detail on the Emotiva out shined the Anthem.
I was hoping to find a single multi-channel amp that could give me the ultimate 2 channel performance and serve purpose for multi-channel as well. A pipe dream, sure, but I was still hopeful. Overall the XPA 5 Gen 2 sounds very good. Without a doubt it will add responsiveness, clarity, and depth to almost any integrated amplification system from an already strained AVR. But I require 2 channel performance first, so my needs will only be fulfilled by a dedicated 2 channel amp and probably a better preamp. If not for the noise of this amp, I very likely would have kept it for multi-channel and 2 channel duty until I could find a better 2 channel amp/preamp or mono blocks. But the noise is just too much for me to be comfortable with.
|
|
|
|
Post by Bonzo on Aug 12, 2013 17:15:34 GMT -5
Any word if the lights are completely defeatable? This is the very first thing I went looking for. But alas, it doesn't look like they added this. Frack.  I had some e-mail discussions with Emotiva last year and their reasoning is that they want "some" light on to show that the unit is working properly. I'm not for that. I mean the red lights come on if something goes wrong, so why not be able to make it totally dark. This is my biggest gripe about this equipment. The blue lights are lasers burning holes through my eyes. They are just so overly bright. The only true fix is the one that's out there in internet land (don't have the link handy but you can google it.) Only problem is that it voids the warrantee.  They should have at least added a dimmer setting button, like 3, 2, 1. |
|
I had some e-mail discussions with Emotiva last year and their reasoning is that they want "some" light on to show that the unit is working properly. I'm not for that. I mean the red lights come on if something goes wrong, so why not be able to make it totally dark. This is my biggest gripe about this equipment. The blue lights are lasers burning holes through my eyes. They are just so overly bright. The only true fix is the one that's out there in internet land (don't have the link handy but you can google it.) Only problem is that it voids the warrantee. 
They should have at least added a dimmer setting button, like 3, 2, 1.