Just Ordered An XPA-5 Gen 3

[tswon]

I’ve had my current home theater since December. I was using a Marantz to drive 11 speakers and I noticed I had to increase the Master Volume more and more to get the desired output as I added Back Surrounds and the four Ceiling Speakers. I don’t really intend to blast the sound but I wanted to take some of the burden off my AVR. The Emotiva will drive a pair of Bowers & Wilkins 702 S2s, a Bowers & Wilkins HTM71 and a pair of Bowers & Wilkins 706 S2s. I’ve come across many opinions that an external amplifier shouldn’t be necessary for my AVR but I’ve been thinking about it for half a year.

[davidl81]

Aug 16, 2019 8:47:58 GMT -5 tswon said:

I’ve had my current home theater since December. I was using a Marantz to drive 11 speakers and I noticed I had to increase the Master Volume more and more to get the desired output as I added Back Surrounds and the four Ceiling Speakers. I don’t really intend to blast the sound but I wanted to take some of the burden off my AVR. The Emotiva will drive a pair of Bowers & Wilkins 702 S2s, a Bowers & Wilkins HTM71 and a pair of Bowers & Wilkins 706 S2s. I’ve come across many opinions that an external amplifier shouldn’t be necessary for my AVR but I’ve been thinking about it for half a year.

I think you will be very happy with the increase in performance with the XPA-5 especially when you get to higher volume levels.  The Marantz is a fine unit, its just trying to push a lot of speakers at one time from a fairly limited power supply.  It will do a great job with the Atmos/surround speakers as you use the XPA-5 for your main set up.  When I built my media room five years ago I started with the SR7009 then added a XPA-5 (G2).  The XPA did help a bunch.  Also at higher volumes you will be getting a much cleaner signal to all of your speakers, thus giving you much better life out of them.  Remember its not really the amount of watts that will damage a speaker, its dirty (distorted) watts that will do damage.  You would be much more likely to damage your BW speakers running all 11 speakers on your Marantz at high volume than you would be to damage them with the XPA-5 even playing the XPA-5 at higher volumes. 

[tswon]

Is there any issue with the Emotiva having too much power for my Center Channel and Side Surrounds? Its 250 Watts Per Channel exceeds the Peak Power Handling of my speakers (200 watts and 120 watts).

[davidl81]

Not at all. Ideally your amp's maximum output should always be greater than what your speakers can handle. The amp is going to deliver clean low distortion sound to your speakers, and even if the speakers saw all of that draw they would be able to handle it fine. Even at crazy loud levels your amp is probably only sending 20-50W to your speakers. And 99% of the time your speakers are seeing only around 1W of power or so. The biggest advantage of an external amp is not really the peak power (although it is there if needed), but it is the ability to drive consistent clean power to your speakers in a way that most AVR's cannot when taxed with driving that many speakers at a time.