low volume,no punch

[ricky7882]

I bought an Onkyo Tx nr1010 receiver at the beginning of 2013. I am using it in a 5.1 set up using Paradigm Studio 60 v4, Paradigm cc-570 v3 center, and energy rears, with a paradigm Ultra cube 10 sub. Right from the start I thought there was something missing. I would turn the volume up to 70 on the Onkyo but the sound was not there. After numerous setting changes and tweaks I got it to sound a little better, but not what I hoped for.

 So I did a lot of reading and came across the XPA-5. I thought this would solve the wattage issues that come with using  receivers. After it arrived and got it all set up, powered it up and ? The sound was better, more volume{ a bit better}, but not what I expected. More power ,real  power, but still I don't  feel it in the heart punch, if you know what I mean.  I checked settings, connections, but still no thump. If I turn the Onkyo remote volume to 75, it sounds ok, but not what you would expect.

 My question is to do with the pre out voltage of the Onkyo. I am not really sure on how this works. Is the Onkyo sending a voltage to the Xpa-5, and thus out to the speakers? If this is true, is the onkyo sending enough voltage out ? After spending money on the onkyo, then the emotiva, and still I cant feel the sound the way I thought it would sound.

 Any help on this matter would be great.

 One other thing is I am thinking about getting the XMC-1, and selling the onkyo. Would this make a noticeable difference in sound, or just a bigger hit to the wallet?

 Thanks.

 Rick

[garbulky]

Well....getting a UMC-200 may help you. But I think it's not just that. How big is your room? Sometimes speakers and subwoofers are simply not setup correctly or they aren't big enough for the room. If you can post a picture of your room that may help.

[solarrdadd]

don't know what to tell you. i have had an Onkyo receiver 805 & currently an Onkyo Pre-Amp 5507 connected to my XPA-5 and if i turned the volume to 70 the cops would be at my place, and so would the medics to stop the bleeding from my ears!

not sure what to tell you. the emo amps need very little voltage to drive them; they make them that way. you should be suffering from headaches with the volume set to 75 unless you have already lost some hearing.

i can't imagine what you might have been expecting, but, i can tell you that this amp has worked without exception for two Onkyo products. when doing the test tones for calibration, did you not get 75db's for each speaker at the listening position? while that might need a little tweaking, the XPA-5 will put out some volume, some serious volume levels my friend.

keep us posted.

[solarrdadd]

also, make sure you don't have the receiver set to "night time" or something like that.....yeah, i know, i'm reaching, but, i'm trying to help.

[ricky7882]

Room is 16x 10, with 7.5 foot ceiling. Night time is not on. Intellivolume set to 12db. The only way to get some sound out of it.

[Cory Cooper]

Looking at the manual for your Onkyo, it looks like the following:

Volume Display
Absolute: Min, 0.5 to 99.5, Max
Relative (THX): -∞dB, -81.5dB to +18.0dB

With this setting you can choose how the volume level is displayed.
The absolute value 82 is equivalent to the relative value of 0dB.

Note
If the absolute value is set to 82, "82.0Ref" will appear on the display and the THX indicator will flash.

Maximum Volume
-Off, 50 to 99 (Absolute display)
-Off, -32dB to +17dB (Relative Display)

-I would assume that you are referring to 70.0 in the Absolute section, which is 12 from the reference level of 82.0, and 29.5 from the maximum of 99.5, correct?
-Have you measured the dB level with a SPL meter?
-Have you set a volume limit in the Maximum Volume section of Main Menu > Miscellaneous or is it set to Off?

C

[solarrdadd]

Mar 21, 2014 20:15:14 GMT -5 ricky7882 said:

Room is 16x 10, with 7.5 foot ceiling. Night time is not on. Intellivolume set to 12db. The only way to get some sound out of it.

my room is larger than yours is and the loudest i've ever had it to watch a movie was 60 and that was because of the movie's audio mastering levels. most movie watching from blu-ray or HD-dvd sources are averaging around 50-55 and that 55 can be loud. i like my hearing so i never have movies or music playing too loud. i'm usually the first one to turn it down!

again, that XPA-5 should be puttin some serious hurt on ya, so, i'm surprised at what your saying; something doesn't seem right.

[solidstate]

Mar 21, 2014 19:23:57 GMT -5 ricky7882 said:

I bought an Onkyo Tx nr1010 receiver at the beginning of 2013. I am using it in a 5.1 set up using Paradigm Studio 60 v4, Paradigm cc-570 v3 center, and energy rears, with a paradigm Ultra cube 10 sub. Right from the start I thought there was something missing. I would turn the volume up to 70 on the Onkyo but the sound was not there. After numerous setting changes and tweaks I got it to sound a little better, but not what I hoped for.

 So I did a lot of reading and came across the XPA-5. I thought this would solve the wattage issues that come with using  receivers. After it arrived and got it all set up, powered it up and ? The sound was better, more volume{ a bit better}, but not what I expected. More power ,real  power, but still I don't  feel it in the heart punch, if you know what I mean.  I checked settings, connections, but still no thump. If I turn the Onkyo remote volume to 75, it sounds ok, but not what you would expect.

 My question is to do with the pre out voltage of the Onkyo. I am not really sure on how this works. Is the Onkyo sending a voltage to the Xpa-5, and thus out to the speakers? If this is true, is the onkyo sending enough voltage out ? After spending money on the onkyo, then the emotiva, and still I cant feel the sound the way I thought it would sound.

 Any help on this matter would be great.

 One other thing is I am thinking about getting the XMC-1, and selling the onkyo. Would this make a noticeable difference in sound, or just a bigger hit to the wallet?

 Thanks.

 Rick

What cables are you using to feed the XPA-5? Really cheap thin thin boxed (comes with say a DVD player) RCA cables can have an affect.

[novisnick]

If all of the above does not help, then I'm afraid that there is a problem with your AVR IMHO.
I would totally hate that but you should have the cops at your door with an XPA-5 pumping out watts!!!!!!

Peace,

Nick

[solarrdadd]

also, did you buy the XPA-5 new or used? has it ever worked correctly---the two of them together that is? if you purchased it used, did you get to hear it driven to volumes that would make you happy?

if you bought it new, is it still under warranty? hell, if you bought it used, is it still under warranty? perhaps it's the amp? i mean, if it's used and if you didn't hear it sound super good then suddenly it stopped being super good.

i know, i'm reaching.

[novisnick]

Mar 21, 2014 22:20:21 GMT -5 solarrdadd said:

also, did you buy the XPA-5 new or used? has it ever worked correctly---the two of them together that is? if you purchased it used, did you get to hear it driven to volumes that would make you happy?

if you bought it new, is it still under warranty? hell, if you bought it used, is it still under warranty? perhaps it's the amp? i mean, if it's used and if you didn't hear it sound super good then suddenly it stopped being super good.

i know, i'm reaching.

Slow down,,,,,,Please! The OP stated that the AVR never drove his speakers well at all,,,,Ever.
lets not jump to the amp when we haven't looked at the source ( AVR )
2 cents here.

[Deleted]

You listed your speakers/sub but nothing else but the Onkyo and XPA-5.  Now we have the room size and Illivolume at 12dB.  As much info as possible always helps. 

You have something on the Onkyo set incorrectly IMO.  I'm not sure here if you are talking about movies or music or both?   I have no specifics about Intellivolume but that is where I would look first as it sounds like an "easy" way to setup just like audyssey for folks who don't like to set the speaker gain/volume levels manually, which IMO is best.  In a very quick check online it appears that the Intellivolume is best at zero!   I would carefully read the Onkyo owner's manual and re-check all your hookups from the Onkyo to the XPA-5 and all speaker/sub settings.  Be sure you have used the correct preamp lineout jacks for all channels and the sub.   

No offense intended, but don't expect wonders from a 10" cube sub.  I'm suspicioaus of the 22Hz spec as it has no +/-dB reference, although an Aussie mag verified that although probably not very loud.  I'm guessing here that your Onkyo has set the main (LRC) speakers to large/full range and not to small/crossover, or whatever terms Onkyo uses.  I would highly recommend overriding the auto settings and set a crossover of 80Hz for both the sub and LCR speakers. (probably 80-90Hz depending on which Energy's you have).   This means that the sub and its built-in amp will reproduce all bass below 80Hz (re-directed from all 5 speakers), plus the LFE/0.1 special  effects channel from the Onkyo in an RCA line level connection.  The main speakers will reproduce all above 80Hz.  Try 70-75Hz for the L&R if you like.  Don't be surprised here as below 80Hz the Studio 60 is in its lowest octave and it is most likely that the sub will reproduce the range below 80Hz cleaner.  Running them both below 80Hz at the same time IMO leads to boomy bass. Unfortunately I could find no copy of the owner's manual to check out the back panel of the sub.  Be sure you have the crossover system turned off on the sub.  Either use the bypass switch or if no bypass then turn the crossover dial all the way clockwise to the max frequency setting, usually about 150Hz and leave it there.  The volume/gain dial should be about at 11 o'clock to start with and then when set perfectly leave it alone!  Use the sub/main crossover settings on the Onkyo only.

The XPA-5 will give you more power output when needed, power to all channels if and when needed without any strain or shutdown especially into 4 ohm speakers, and reserve headroom power to avoid amp clipping when required for extremely dynamic sections of Blu-Ray tracks and high def CD's and mutli-channel CD's.  When loafing along with music at normal levels you might or might not hear much difference, but the power is there if and when you need it and with more difficult to drive speakers in the future.  

You said:  "Right from the start I thought there was something missing".  That leads me to believe you have an issue with the Onkyo or much more likely pilot error for the speaker/sub setting or AVR/XPA-5 connections.

 

[ottaone]

If you still have the old AVR, use it with the xpa even just the left and right.

[jlafrenz]

To address the first question/issue, your Onkyo does have enough output voltage to drive the XPA-5. Per the manual it has a nominal output voltage of 1V and a maximum of 5.5V. The XPA series amps require 1.25V to drive them.

I would focus on speaker placement. This is key to quality sound. You could have some of the best components on the market, but if your speakers are not set up for their proper placement in your room, the end result and sound quality may suffer. Next you should look into room treatments to supplement speaker placement.

The other point I want to address is that if you feel like you are lacking punch, cranking the volume won't give you more punch. It will provide you louder volume. You need to focus on setup. Once you have your speakers set for the best possible position in your room, you need to use some sort of software to measure your room and see what is really going on. You may find that there are dips in the frequencies that provide punch. See the link below for a chart of these. Once you determine this, it will guide you in properly choosing and placing panels.

www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/freqchart/main_display.htm

The last point I want to touch on is purely subjective and a personal opinion. Onkyo has always sounded thin to me. However, it seems that the issue you are experiencing may be related to a few other things.

[solarrdadd]

Mar 21, 2014 22:36:09 GMT -5 novisnick said:

Mar 21, 2014 22:20:21 GMT -5 solarrdadd said:

also, did you buy the XPA-5 new or used? has it ever worked correctly---the two of them together that is? if you purchased it used, did you get to hear it driven to volumes that would make you happy?

if you bought it new, is it still under warranty? hell, if you bought it used, is it still under warranty? perhaps it's the amp? i mean, if it's used and if you didn't hear it sound super good then suddenly it stopped being super good.

i know, i'm reaching.

Slow down,,,,,,Please! The OP stated that the AVR never drove his speakers well at all,,,,Ever.
lets not jump to the amp when we haven't looked at the source ( AVR )
2 cents here.

i know you want to defend emotiva as many folks here do, but, i'm never said anything bad about it nor did i say it was the problem and let's forget about the amp. i was trying to find out if he purchased the amp new from emotiva since he only stated that he purchased the receiver the beginning of last year; he never stated when or where he got either that or the emotiva amp from. everything is fair game and he should be looking at everything.

plenty of people here have had a bad piece of equipment from emotiva and they are still a great company so lets not make them beyond reproach. again, i'm not saying the amp is the problem, just trying to get some facts that have not been mentioned. one other thing, we don't know what his definition of "driving speakers well" is, we only know what we consider "driven well" is for ourselves. i've been to some peoples houses and they are blasting music and movies like crazy and that's how it should be for them. we base things on our experiences and our preferences.

also, it would be good to know if he purchased the receiver brand new too. i'm just trying to help him, not argue or battle with you over emotiva. please let's not drag this out into something it never was, please.

[novisnick]

Mar 22, 2014 8:44:55 GMT -5 solarrdadd said:

Mar 21, 2014 22:36:09 GMT -5 novisnick said:

Slow down,,,,,,Please! The OP stated that the AVR never drove his speakers well at all,,,,Ever.
lets not jump to the amp when we haven't looked at the source ( AVR )
2 cents here.

i know you want to defend emotiva as many folks here do, but, i'm never said anything bad about it nor did i say it was the problem and let's forget about the amp. i was trying to find out if he purchased the amp new from emotiva since he only stated that he purchased the receiver the beginning of last year; he never stated when or where he got either that or the emotiva amp from. everything is fair game and he should be looking at everything.

plenty of people here have had a bad piece of equipment from emotiva and they are still a great company so lets not make them beyond reproach. again, i'm not saying the amp is the problem, just trying to get some facts that have not been mentioned. one other thing, we don't know what his definition of "driving speakers well" is, we only know what we consider "driven well" is for ourselves. i've been to some peoples houses and they are blasting music and movies like crazy and that's how it should be for them. we base things on our experiences and our preferences.

also, it would be good to know if he purchased the receiver brand new too. i'm just trying to help him, not argue or battle with you over emotiva. please let's not drag this out into something it never was, please.

Yes, you have valid points but it was never about being an Emo fanboy and I don't think I've ever tried to pick an argument,,,,,,too old for that stuff. The OP said the problem was evident prior to the amp purchase. That was solely my basis for my comments. 
I too wish to help this gentleman, that is all I've ever strived to do on this forum.
if there is a misunderstanding about this I do apologize.  No piece of equipment is Beyond reproach.
i do think you have dragged it to where it is, I was not intending to go down that road just trying to get to the OPs problem.
i do realize and appreciate your point about our own expectations of a well driven AVR or Amp, this may be the whole situation,,,,I love that point. But , as I said previously,,,,,The OP s expectations were never met with his AVR and the further compounded by lack of improvement with the addition of the amp,,,,any amp I believe would not have helped this situation because I do think the problem lies with the AVR.
just MHO
No harm, no foul,,,,,and goodness knows , not looking for confrontation........way too much of that in this world.

Peace onto you my friend.

Nick

[Priapulus]

Try the amp on another receiver. borrow or visit a friend's. Then you will know if it is the amp or receiver.
/b

[solarrdadd]

Mar 22, 2014 9:09:41 GMT -5 novisnick said:

Mar 22, 2014 8:44:55 GMT -5 solarrdadd said:

i know you want to defend emotiva as many folks here do, but, i'm never said anything bad about it nor did i say it was the problem and let's forget about the amp. i was trying to find out if he purchased the amp new from emotiva since he only stated that he purchased the receiver the beginning of last year; he never stated when or where he got either that or the emotiva amp from. everything is fair game and he should be looking at everything.

plenty of people here have had a bad piece of equipment from emotiva and they are still a great company so lets not make them beyond reproach. again, i'm not saying the amp is the problem, just trying to get some facts that have not been mentioned. one other thing, we don't know what his definition of "driving speakers well" is, we only know what we consider "driven well" is for ourselves. i've been to some peoples houses and they are blasting music and movies like crazy and that's how it should be for them. we base things on our experiences and our preferences.

also, it would be good to know if he purchased the receiver brand new too. i'm just trying to help him, not argue or battle with you over emotiva. please let's not drag this out into something it never was, please.

Yes, you have valid points but it was never about being an Emo fanboy and I don't think I've ever tried to pick an argument,,,,,,too old for that stuff. The OP said the problem was evident prior to the amp purchase. That was solely my basis for my comments. 
I too wish to help this gentleman, that is all I've ever strived to do on this forum.
if there is a misunderstanding about this I do apologize.  No piece of equipment is Beyond reproach.
i do think you have dragged it to where it is, I was not intending to go down that road just trying to get to the OPs problem.
i do realize and appreciate your point about our own expectations of a well driven AVR or Amp, this may be the whole situation,,,,I love that point. But , as I said previously,,,,,The OP s expectations were never met with his AVR and the further compounded by lack of improvement with the addition of the amp,,,,any amp I believe would not have helped this situation because I do think the problem lies with the AVR.
just MHO
No harm, no foul,,,,,and goodness knows , not looking for confrontation........way too much of that in this world.

Peace onto you my friend.

Nick

no worries nick, we are cool. ultimately, we want to help this member out as much as possible.

he gave up some background info on the receiver but nothing on the amp as in how long he had the amp in relation to how long he had the receiver and if it was new or used.

one of the things i find when we try to help people is that they don't give enough information and we kinda have to pull it out of them and we need that to help them out.

so no, you keep right on posting, helping people, as will i. and i apologize because i reacted to your post, in the not so right way and that's on me.

perhaps we should wait to let the OP respond to some of the things that have been asked of him. then move forward then.

again, Nick, we are cool.

[novisnick]

Rite back at you bud,,,,,COOL!
Very true about posts with less then enough info to help them,,,,patients is a virtue,,,,,he,,,,,,he,,,,,,,
And , yes we are driven to help,,,,that's one of the reasons people like us are here.

Nick

[kse]

My guess is both the amp and AVR are fine and that there is something amiss with the set-up as a whole, ie: room, speaker placement, or some other unknown variable.