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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2020 10:08:25 GMT -5
Well, my DR3 came in last Monday and I've had a few days to listen. I replaced my Gen 5 Channel which was only utilizing 3 channels for the front sound stage LCR. Lemme just say that after swapping out the amp I immediately turned it on and could hear a noticeable difference. I'm a little curious as to why the better sound which I can only describe as "softer" or fuller and not so as a review of the Gen 3 as masculine [Stereophile stated that the Gen 3 sounded hard and masculine]. Stereophile then fell short of stating why that was but indicated a certain degree of distorting in the midrange which may be the culprit. Anyhow, whatever difference Emotiva made to the DR series is noticeable as the two amps do not sound anything alike. I also note the added "balls" without sounding brass like. The DR3 and added wattage now nowhere requires turning up the volume level as the XPA Gen 3 5 channel driven into 4 ohms to achieve the same SPL.. With the 5 channel I had pegged my 5 channel at the 82 percent volume level in which now the DR3 achieves around 70 percent. My system has been set up for around two months now and I'm still tweaking the calibrations. Just to note all my front sound stage is 4 ohms and my center channel is 3-4 db lower than the L and R channels. I find this to be a better blend to achieve the desired imaging whereas equal output to the LCR has the Center channel too dominate. Reference: Review of XPA Gen 3: www.stereophile.com/content/emotiva-xpa-gen3-two-channel-power-amplifierEnjoy, Shim |
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Post by garbulky on Feb 6, 2020 10:12:49 GMT -5
Well, my DR3 came in last Monday and I've had a few days to listen. I replaced my Gen 5 Channel which was only utilizing 3 channels for the front sound stage LCR. . Anyhow, whatever difference Emotiva made to the DR series is noticeable as the two amps do not sound anything alike. I also note the added "balls" without sounding brass like. The DR3 and added wattage is now nowhere near the required volume level of the XPA Gen 3 5 channel driven into 4 ohms. With the 5 channel I had pegged my 5 channel at the 82 percent volume level in which now the DR3 achieves around 70 percent on the DR amp. My system has been set up for around two months now and I'm still tweaking the calibrations. Just to note all my front sound stage is 4 ohms and my center channel is 3-4 db lower than the L and R channels. I find this to be a better blend to achieve the desired imaging whereas equal output to the LCR has the Center channel too dominate. Enjoy, Shim There ya go! You just noticed a difference in amps. Keep in mind both the gen 3 5 channel and your DR should have NO trouble providing the power needed for your speakers. So it wasn't that one was running out of power. What do you mean by this? |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2020 10:16:19 GMT -5
Well, my DR3 came in last Monday and I've had a few days to listen. I replaced my Gen 5 Channel which was only utilizing 3 channels for the front sound stage LCR. . Anyhow, whatever difference Emotiva made to the DR series is noticeable as the two amps do not sound anything alike. I also note the added "balls" without sounding brass like. The DR3 and added wattage is now nowhere near the required volume level of the XPA Gen 3 5 channel driven into 4 ohms. With the 5 channel I had pegged my 5 channel at the 82 percent volume level in which now the DR3 achieves around 70 percent on the DR amp. My system has been set up for around two months now and I'm still tweaking the calibrations. Just to note all my front sound stage is 4 ohms and my center channel is 3-4 db lower than the L and R channels. I find this to be a better blend to achieve the desired imaging whereas equal output to the LCR has the Center channel too dominate. Enjoy, Shim There ya go! You just noticed a difference in amps. Keep in mind both the gen 3 5 channel and your DR should have NO trouble providing the power needed for your speakers. So it wasn't that one was running out of power. What do you mean by this? Hello Garbulky, I reworded the original post to clarify. Just mean that the DR3 is much more powerful and requires less volume to achieve the same SPL as the Gen 3 XPA amp. The system gets so loud I'm afraid of blowing speakers. I know this side of clipping though that isn't a problem as the L and R speakers handle up to 1000 watts. The center or C channel speaker though is only rated at 400 watts. I was shocked at how noticeable the difference was immediately regarding sound. I now understand what Stereophile was referring to. I use to laugh at people that said this or that amp was "warmer" sounding. The tones are so much more mellower compared to the "harsher" sounding Gen 3 XPA. |
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Post by garbulky on Feb 6, 2020 11:09:57 GMT -5
There ya go! You just noticed a difference in amps. Keep in mind both the gen 3 5 channel and your DR should have NO trouble providing the power needed for your speakers. So it wasn't that one was running out of power. What do you mean by this? Hello Garbulky, I reworded the original post to clarify. Just mean that the DR3 is much more powerful and requires less volume to achieve the same SPL as the Gen 3 XPA amp. The system gets so loud I'm afraid of blowing speakers. I know this side of clipping though that isn't a problem as the L and R speakers handle up to 1000 watts. The center or C channel speaker though is only rated at 400 watts. I was shocked at how noticeable the difference was immediately regarding sound. I now understand what Stereophile was referring to. I use to laugh at people that said this or that amp was "warmer" sounding. The tones are so much more mellower compared to the "harsher" sounding Gen 3 XPA. Yep I had what I thought was a pretty nice amp (and it is!) the Emotiva UPA-2. But then switching to the XPA-1 gen 2 was just a complete reversal - same volume much better sound. BTW a lower position on the volume knob to get to a particular volume isn't an indicator of more power. That is an indicator of different gain. For instance a 10 watt amp and a 1000 watt amp would be able to acheive the SAME volume on a particular knob position if their gain is the same. If the 10 watt amp's gain is higher, the 10 watt amp would acheive a higher volume at the same knob position even though it clearly doesn't have as much power as the 1000 watt amp. The difference is where the amps start giving out as you keep turning the gain up. The more powerful amp will continue providing clean power (and volume) as its power output increases while the weaker amp will start clipping well before. But the actual positions on the volume knob means little. Now interestingly the XPA-5 gen 3 and the XPA DR-3 both have "identical" gain at 29db. This means at the same volume knob level they should sound the same in perceived volume at the same volume knob position. However as you mentioned the DR-3 sounds louder (though it shouldn't). This likely means that even though it's supposed to have 29db gain, it probably has a slightly higher gain - maybe 30 db or 31 db. Perhaps it's a variance or simply an innacurate spec. Higher gain produces slightly higher noise but at this tiny variance the noise difference is negligible. It also could be that the XPA-5 gen 3 has a slightly lower gain than advertised. Emotiva's gain used to be 32 db because back then a lot of preamps could only put out about 1V or so versus the 2V required to drive the amp to full. They reduced it to 29 db later which is a more standard gain. Another thing you will be surprised is that if you measure how much power your DR3 (and XPA-5 gen 3) is outputting at any one time it's likely to be between 0.5 and 1.5 watts of power. Yep. That little. I believe we were driving power hungry thiels using a macintosh solid state power amp and we couldn't get the meters to push to 2 watts no matter how loud we tried. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2020 11:13:54 GMT -5
Hello Garbulky, I reworded the original post to clarify. Just mean that the DR3 is much more powerful and requires less volume to achieve the same SPL as the Gen 3 XPA amp. The system gets so loud I'm afraid of blowing speakers. I know this side of clipping though that isn't a problem as the L and R speakers handle up to 1000 watts. The center or C channel speaker though is only rated at 400 watts. I was shocked at how noticeable the difference was immediately regarding sound. I now understand what Stereophile was referring to. I use to laugh at people that said this or that amp was "warmer" sounding. The tones are so much more mellower compared to the "harsher" sounding Gen 3 XPA. Yep I had what I thought was a pretty nice amp (and it is!) the Emotiva UPA-2. But then switching to the XPA-1 gen 2 was just a complete reversal - same volume much better sound. BTW a lower position on the volume knob to get to a particular volume isn't an indicator of more power. That is an indicator of different gain. For instance a 10 watt amp and a 1000 watt amp would be able to acheive the SAME volume on a particular knob position if their gain is the same. If the 10 watt amp's gain is higher, the 10 watt amp would acheive a higher volume at the same knob position even though it clearly doesn't have as much power as the 1000 watt amp. The difference is where the amps start giving out as you keep turning the gain up. The more powerful amp will continue providing clean power (and volume) as its power output increases while the weaker amp will start clipping well before. But the actual positions on the volume knob means little. Now interestingly the XPA-5 gen 3 and the XPA DR-3 both have "identical" gain at 29db. This means at the same volume knob level they should sound the same in perceived volume at the same volume knob position. However as you mentioned the DR-3 sounds louder (though it shouldn't). This likely means that even though it's supposed to have 29db gain, it probably has a slightly higher gain - maybe 30 db or 31 db. Perhaps it's a variance or simply an innacurate spec. Higher gain produces slightly higher noise but at this tiny variance the noise difference is negligible. It also could be that the XPA-5 gen 3 has a slightly lower gain than advertised. Emotiva's gain used to be 32 db because back then a lot of preamps could only put out about 1V or so versus the 2V required to drive the amp to full. They reduced it to 29 db later which is a more standard gain. Another thing you will be surprised is that if you measure how much power your DR3 (and XPA-5 gen 3) is outputting at any one time it's likely to be between 0.5 and 1.5 watts of power. Yep. That little. I believe we were driving power hungry thiels using a macintosh solid state power amp and we couldn't get the meters to push to 2 watts no matter how loud we tried. Awesome response Garbulky. Thank you! Can anyone recommend a good SPL meter? |
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Post by repeetavx on Feb 6, 2020 12:31:00 GMT -5
Wow, mid range distortion. No wonder people are reporting that the Gen.3s don't sound as good as the older (conventional power supply) generations.
Since both Gen.3s have the same style of power supply, I wonder if it isn't the added balanced circuitry that is removing the distortion that the current architecture is allegedly producing. If so, then whatever is surviving the filtering process probably is not as complete as it would be if it had not been distorted in the first place. I'd be interested to see an instrumented report.
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Post by tropicallutefisk on Feb 6, 2020 12:42:22 GMT -5
Yep I had what I thought was a pretty nice amp (and it is!) the Emotiva UPA-2. But then switching to the XPA-1 gen 2 was just a complete reversal - same volume much better sound. BTW a lower position on the volume knob to get to a particular volume isn't an indicator of more power. That is an indicator of different gain. For instance a 10 watt amp and a 1000 watt amp would be able to acheive the SAME volume on a particular knob position if their gain is the same. If the 10 watt amp's gain is higher, the 10 watt amp would acheive a higher volume at the same knob position even though it clearly doesn't have as much power as the 1000 watt amp. The difference is where the amps start giving out as you keep turning the gain up. The more powerful amp will continue providing clean power (and volume) as its power output increases while the weaker amp will start clipping well before. But the actual positions on the volume knob means little. Now interestingly the XPA-5 gen 3 and the XPA DR-3 both have "identical" gain at 29db. This means at the same volume knob level they should sound the same in perceived volume at the same volume knob position. However as you mentioned the DR-3 sounds louder (though it shouldn't). This likely means that even though it's supposed to have 29db gain, it probably has a slightly higher gain - maybe 30 db or 31 db. Perhaps it's a variance or simply an innacurate spec. Higher gain produces slightly higher noise but at this tiny variance the noise difference is negligible. It also could be that the XPA-5 gen 3 has a slightly lower gain than advertised. Emotiva's gain used to be 32 db because back then a lot of preamps could only put out about 1V or so versus the 2V required to drive the amp to full. They reduced it to 29 db later which is a more standard gain. Another thing you will be surprised is that if you measure how much power your DR3 (and XPA-5 gen 3) is outputting at any one time it's likely to be between 0.5 and 1.5 watts of power. Yep. That little. I believe we were driving power hungry thiels using a macintosh solid state power amp and we couldn't get the meters to push to 2 watts no matter how loud we tried. Awesome response Garbulky. Thank you! Can anyone recommend a good SPL meter? I use the DecibelX app and it seems to be pretty accurate for hobbyist use. |
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Post by tropicallutefisk on Feb 6, 2020 12:46:34 GMT -5
Congrats on your new DR3. I have three DR1s and love the performance; detailed, tight and smooth. Consider me very satisfied with these amps.
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Feb 6, 2020 15:00:39 GMT -5
I've got to be honest here guys....
I haven't seen a single claim that the Gen3 amps don't sound as good or better than the older generations of amps FROM SOMEONE WHO DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE LISTENING TO AN AMP WITH AN SMPS. This is not to say that there isn't a slight difference... or that some folks may not in fact prefer the way the older amps sound... (I suspect the reason is more likely to be the differences in their amplifier circuitry.)
BUT..... An awful lot of people just don't like the idea of a switch mode power supply... and I'm inclined to suspect that this tends to alter their judgment... consciously or otherwise.
In engineering terms, the fact that the new SMPS is REGULATED is an improvement, while there is no actual down-side to the omission of thirty pounds or so of copper and iron. (It would be very interesting to see the results of a true double-blind comparison of the same exact amplifier circuitry - operating from an SMPS and a linear supply... )
And, in reply to the flowery language I often see in reviews, a high quality amplifier should NOT sound "masculine" or "feminine" (or "canine" or "feline" for that matter). And, to be fair there, many reviewers seem to assign the term "masculine" to gear that is accurate...
And to assign terms like "feminine" to gear that adds a bit of what they consider to be pleasant coloration... (I wonder if that idea is somehow analogous to a woman putting on makeup to alter her appearance?)
We tend to believe that a high quality amplifier should sound like exactly nothing - or as close to that goal as is practically possible.
And, while anyone, including a reviewer, is obviously free to prefer the coloration they hear from their favorite tube amp, an amplifier must earn the right to claim that it can reproduce music accurately.
Pretty much by definition, an amplifier with a fully differential balanced OUTPUT will be lower in certain types of distortion, compared to a non-differential version of the same amplifier. This happens because, in a fully balanced design, some forms of distortion that occur equally in both channels cancel out to a degree. This is not some sort of "filtering process" that removes distortion that is already present. It is simply a reduction in the amount of distortion that would otherwise be added by the amplifier's output stages... and a change to the spectral profile of the distortion that remains. (And, of course, whether this is audible or not depends entirely on whether there is in fact an audible amount of distortion. As someone once said: "It doesn't matter what the inaudible distortion sounds like because, well, it's inaudible.")
Wow, mid range distortion. No wonder people are reporting that the Gen.3s don't sound as good as the older (conventional power supply) generations. Since both Gen.3s have the same style of power supply, I wonder if it isn't the added balanced circuitry that is removing the distortion that the current architecture is allegedly producing. If so, then whatever is surviving the filtering process probably is not as complete as it would be if it had not been distorted in the first place. I'd be interested to see an instrumented report. |
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Post by rbk123 on Feb 6, 2020 20:20:57 GMT -5
I've got to be honest here guys....
I haven't seen a single claim that the Gen3 amps don't sound as good or better than the older generations of amps FROM SOMEONE WHO DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE LISTENING TO AN AMP WITH AN SMPS. We get that you have to defend the mothership, but I have to say this is some of the flimsiest logic around, even for this board - to attempt to dismiss the overall Gen 3 review consensus due to your beloved expectation bias. But 2 can play, if that's the game -
I've got to be honest here guys.... I haven't seen a single claim that the the Gen3 amps don't sound as good or better than the older generations of amps FROM SOMEONE WHO DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE LISTENING TO A SUBSTANTIALLY MORE EXPENSIVE AMP, NOT ONLY WITH THE NEWEST CIRCUITRY BUT ASSEMBLED IN THE US oF A. People who were expecting an upgrade in sound due to the substantial price premium, and yet came away thinking otherwise.
Then there's this - I haven't seen a single claim that the PA-1's sound absolutely superb FROM SOMEONE WHO DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE LISTENING TO A CLASS D AMP - ONE WITH AN SMPS NO LESS. This one is a double whammy since not only is Class D greatly frowned upon here, it too is torroid free. You know they definitely were expecting it to be a weak product.
There are definitely the SMPS-haters on here, but no way is that everyone who was disappointed in the Gen3.
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Post by davidl81 on Feb 6, 2020 21:59:15 GMT -5
I've got to be honest here guys....
I haven't seen a single claim that the Gen3 amps don't sound as good or better than the older generations of amps FROM SOMEONE WHO DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE LISTENING TO AN AMP WITH AN SMPS. We get that you have to defend the mothership, but I have to say this is some of the flimsiest logic around, even for this board - to attempt to dismiss the overall Gen 3 review consensus due to your beloved expectation bias. But 2 can play, if that's the game -
I've got to be honest here guys.... I haven't seen a single claim that the the Gen3 amps don't sound as good or better than the older generations of amps FROM SOMEONE WHO DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE LISTENING TO A SUBSTANTIALLY MORE EXPENSIVE AMP, NOT ONLY WITH THE NEWEST CIRCUITRY BUT ASSEMBLED IN THE US oF A. People who were expecting an upgrade in sound due to the substantial price premium, and yet came away thinking otherwise.
Then there's this - I haven't seen a single claim that the PA-1's sound absolutely superb FROM SOMEONE WHO DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE LISTENING TO A CLASS D AMP - ONE WITH AN SMPS NO LESS. This one is a double whammy since not only is Class D greatly frowned upon here, it too is torroid free. You know they definitely were expecting it to be a weak product.
There are definitely the SMPS-haters on here, but no way is that everyone who was disappointed in the Gen3.
So I have gone from a XPA-2 G2, XPA-5 G2 to now XPA-9 G3 and DR-2. I went from the XPA-2 to the DR-2 when I still had my AV8802a and the difference was minor. When I went to my RMC-1 I also changed out the XPA-5 to the 9. I will say that my current system sounds significantly better than my old G2 powered system, but I will never be able to tell if it’s the RMC-1 or the XPA-9 or a combo of both. I can say that the G3 series pair exceptionally well with the RMC-1. |
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Post by vcautokid on Feb 7, 2020 6:58:07 GMT -5
Yep I had what I thought was a pretty nice amp (and it is!) the Emotiva UPA-2. But then switching to the XPA-1 gen 2 was just a complete reversal - same volume much better sound. BTW a lower position on the volume knob to get to a particular volume isn't an indicator of more power. That is an indicator of different gain. For instance a 10 watt amp and a 1000 watt amp would be able to acheive the SAME volume on a particular knob position if their gain is the same. If the 10 watt amp's gain is higher, the 10 watt amp would acheive a higher volume at the same knob position even though it clearly doesn't have as much power as the 1000 watt amp. The difference is where the amps start giving out as you keep turning the gain up. The more powerful amp will continue providing clean power (and volume) as its power output increases while the weaker amp will start clipping well before. But the actual positions on the volume knob means little. Now interestingly the XPA-5 gen 3 and the XPA DR-3 both have "identical" gain at 29db. This means at the same volume knob level they should sound the same in perceived volume at the same volume knob position. However as you mentioned the DR-3 sounds louder (though it shouldn't). This likely means that even though it's supposed to have 29db gain, it probably has a slightly higher gain - maybe 30 db or 31 db. Perhaps it's a variance or simply an innacurate spec. Higher gain produces slightly higher noise but at this tiny variance the noise difference is negligible. It also could be that the XPA-5 gen 3 has a slightly lower gain than advertised. Emotiva's gain used to be 32 db because back then a lot of preamps could only put out about 1V or so versus the 2V required to drive the amp to full. They reduced it to 29 db later which is a more standard gain. Another thing you will be surprised is that if you measure how much power your DR3 (and XPA-5 gen 3) is outputting at any one time it's likely to be between 0.5 and 1.5 watts of power. Yep. That little. I believe we were driving power hungry thiels using a macintosh solid state power amp and we couldn't get the meters to push to 2 watts no matter how loud we tried. Awesome response Garbulky. Thank you! Can anyone recommend a good SPL meter? A whole bunch of them on amazon.com. From Cheap that work and are still OSHA compliant to others that are very expensive because you are research and development. Sound testing car interiors for instance. A good one shouldn't be more than 50 bucks. I am looking at one but details escape me at the moment, but lots to choose from. The old radio shack ones are gone so forget those. |
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Post by rbk123 on Feb 7, 2020 9:50:30 GMT -5
I will say that my current system sounds significantly better than my old G2 powered system, but I will never be able to tell if it’s the RMC-1 or the XPA-9 or a combo of both. I can say that the G3 series pair exceptionally well with the RMC-1. Definitely the preamp; changing it is pretty close to the top of the list (with speakers and room treatment) in terms of having the greatest impact to a system. Amp differences are far smaller and subtler, but they are the favorite for audiophiles to want to upgrade. Personally I believe the G3's are fine amps, and doubt I'd pass a double-blind test between them and the Gen 2's, I just think they're terribly priced. |
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Post by garbulky on Feb 7, 2020 14:18:33 GMT -5
I've got to be honest here guys....
I haven't seen a single claim that the Gen3 amps don't sound as good or better than the older generations of amps FROM SOMEONE WHO DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE LISTENING TO AN AMP WITH AN SMPS. This is not to say that there isn't a slight difference... or that some folks may not in fact prefer the way the older amps sound... (I suspect the reason is more likely to be the differences in their amplifier circuitry.)
BUT..... An awful lot of people just don't like the idea of a switch mode power supply... and I'm inclined to suspect that this tends to alter their judgment... consciously or otherwise.
In engineering terms, the fact that the new SMPS is REGULATED is an improvement, while there is no actual down-side to the omission of thirty pounds or so of copper and iron. (It would be very interesting to see the results of a true double-blind comparison of the same exact amplifier circuitry - operating from an SMPS and a linear supply... )
And, in reply to the flowery language I often see in reviews, a high quality amplifier should NOT sound "masculine" or "feminine" (or "canine" or "feline" for that matter). And, to be fair there, many reviewers seem to assign the term "masculine" to gear that is accurate...
And to assign terms like "feminine" to gear that adds a bit of what they consider to be pleasant coloration... (I wonder if that idea is somehow analogous to a woman putting on makeup to alter her appearance?)
We tend to believe that a high quality amplifier should sound like exactly nothing - or as close to that goal as is practically possible.
And, while anyone, including a reviewer, is obviously free to prefer the coloration they hear from their favorite tube amp, an amplifier must earn the right to claim that it can reproduce music accurately.
Pretty much by definition, an amplifier with a fully differential balanced OUTPUT will be lower in certain types of distortion, compared to a non-differential version of the same amplifier. This happens because, in a fully balanced design, some forms of distortion that occur equally in both channels cancel out to a degree. This is not some sort of "filtering process" that removes distortion that is already present. It is simply a reduction in the amount of distortion that would otherwise be added by the amplifier's output stages... and a change to the spectral profile of the distortion that remains. (And, of course, whether this is audible or not depends entirely on whether there is in fact an audible amount of distortion. As someone once said: "It doesn't matter what the inaudible distortion sounds like because, well, it's inaudible.")
Wow, mid range distortion. No wonder people are reporting that the Gen.3s don't sound as good as the older (conventional power supply) generations. Since both Gen.3s have the same style of power supply, I wonder if it isn't the added balanced circuitry that is removing the distortion that the current architecture is allegedly producing. If so, then whatever is surviving the filtering process probably is not as complete as it would be if it had not been distorted in the first place. I'd be interested to see an instrumented report. I thought the Emotiva pa1 sounded terrific while the more expensive and better build quality XPA-2 generation three sounded worse than entry level a-300 which has a fan. The pa1 bested both and sound very close to the xpa1/2 gen 2 amps. So I am not sure that it is all bias. It is true that I don’t care for switch mode power supplies but if the sound is fantastic I Think that is more important. Plus remember that all of us on this forum are big fans of Emotiva. Why would we not want the bread and butter line to sound great? |
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Post by mack71 on Feb 7, 2020 15:03:42 GMT -5
I've got to be honest here guys....
I haven't seen a single claim that the Gen3 amps don't sound as good or better than the older generations of amps FROM SOMEONE WHO DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE LISTENING TO AN AMP WITH AN SMPS. This is not to say that there isn't a slight difference... or that some folks may not in fact prefer the way the older amps sound... (I suspect the reason is more likely to be the differences in their amplifier circuitry.)
BUT..... An awful lot of people just don't like the idea of a switch mode power supply... and I'm inclined to suspect that this tends to alter their judgment... consciously or otherwise.
In engineering terms, the fact that the new SMPS is REGULATED is an improvement, while there is no actual down-side to the omission of thirty pounds or so of copper and iron. (It would be very interesting to see the results of a true double-blind comparison of the same exact amplifier circuitry - operating from an SMPS and a linear supply... )
And, in reply to the flowery language I often see in reviews, a high quality amplifier should NOT sound "masculine" or "feminine" (or "canine" or "feline" for that matter). And, to be fair there, many reviewers seem to assign the term "masculine" to gear that is accurate...
And to assign terms like "feminine" to gear that adds a bit of what they consider to be pleasant coloration... (I wonder if that idea is somehow analogous to a woman putting on makeup to alter her appearance?)
We tend to believe that a high quality amplifier should sound like exactly nothing - or as close to that goal as is practically possible.
And, while anyone, including a reviewer, is obviously free to prefer the coloration they hear from their favorite tube amp, an amplifier must earn the right to claim that it can reproduce music accurately.
Pretty much by definition, an amplifier with a fully differential balanced OUTPUT will be lower in certain types of distortion, compared to a non-differential version of the same amplifier. This happens because, in a fully balanced design, some forms of distortion that occur equally in both channels cancel out to a degree. This is not some sort of "filtering process" that removes distortion that is already present. It is simply a reduction in the amount of distortion that would otherwise be added by the amplifier's output stages... and a change to the spectral profile of the distortion that remains. (And, of course, whether this is audible or not depends entirely on whether there is in fact an audible amount of distortion. As someone once said: "It doesn't matter what the inaudible distortion sounds like because, well, it's inaudible.")
I thought the Emotiva pa1 sounded terrific while the more expensive and better build quality XPA-2 generation three sounded worse than entry level a-300 which has a fan. The pa1 bested both and sound very close to the xpa1/2 gen 2 amps. So I am not sure that it is all bias. It is true that I don’t care for switch mode power supplies but if the sound is fantastic I Think that is more important. Plus remember that all of us on this forum a big fans of Emotiva. Why would we not want the bread and butter line to sound great? All opinions are subjective  , ... the best way is to try the amplifier in your own system, ... you can always return  |
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Feb 7, 2020 15:30:01 GMT -5
I'm not dismissing anything... However, to be fair, I'm not actually seeing what I would call a consensus... Some people seem to like the sound of older models better...
Some people prefer the sound of the Gen3 models better... And some don't notice a significant difference either way...
But here's the part that I think you and a lot of other folks are missing.... An amplifier has two entirely separate parts: the amplifier and the power supply. Amplifiers do indeed sound different, for a variety of reasons, and in a variety of ways. HOWEVER, unless there is some flaw in its design, the power supply should NOT affect the way the amplifier sounds. (The job of a power supply is not to contribute to the sound of an amplifier; its job is to do the exact opposite.)
Yes, if the power supply is inadequate in some way, it can compromise the performance of the amplifier... And, yes, when they are inadequate, linear power supplies and SMPS tend to be inadequate in different ways... However, if both are "working perfectly", then there will NOT be an audible difference between them. The idea that "a perfectly working linear supply sounds different than a perfectly working SMPS" is quite simply a myth.
Virtually the ONLY reason that older amplifiers lack regulated linear power supplies is that they would be prohibitively large, heavy, and expensive.
The bottom line is that, as far as I know, there is simply no significant inadequacy in our new SMPS. It is fully regulated - which is an improvement over the old one... It delivers plenty of power to supply as many channels as you may ask it to... It is plenty quiet - and generates no significant noise at any audible frequency... Therefore, unless you hear an audible improvement because it's fully regulated, there is no reason for it the power supply to have any effect whatsoever on the sound quality. (I wouldn't bet that being fully regulated will result in a significant audible improvement - but it absolutely is not going to have a negative impact on performance.)
Therefore, I would be truly amazed if anyone can hear a difference between our Gen2 and Gen3 amps THAT IS DUE TO THE DIFFERENCE IN POWER SUPPLIES. I also suspect that, if you were to take the amplifier modules out of an XPA Gen2 amp, and connect them to a Gen3 power supply, they would sound no different.
(And, if they do, it's pretty certain that the difference would be a slight improvement due to the regulated supply.)
I don't at all doubt that some people hear tiny differences... But I do doubt that those differences are due to the different power supplies... They are far more likely to be due to tiny differences between the amplifier sections of the XPA Gen2 and XPA Gen3... And, yes, I have seen many comments from people who are "quite sure that the Gen3 doesn't sound as good because it lacks a big heavy transformer" - even though they have NOT heard both side by side. And, yes, there are also many who believe the Gen3 sounds better... myself included - even though I have no great love for SMPS (other than that I can lift it without getting a hernia). And, yes, even though there are many people who love the way the PA-1 sounds, it's still been an up-hill battle to get some of those "digital amp haters" to even listen to it for themselves.
I would personally be much happier if there was some way to audition our amps BEFORE finding out what they weigh, what kind of power supply they have, or anything else about what's inside. Far too many audiophiles are far too eager to think they can tell how an audio product will sound based on insufficient or incorrect information and assumptions about the circuitry inside.
So, as I've said before, feel free to say you like one or the other better... But, please, if you prefer the older models, don't assume that the reason is the power supply.
I should also note that this has drifted very far off topic... Since both the XPA Gen3 and XPA-DR amps use the same SMPS... And the difference between them is limited to the XPA-DR being fully differential and being significantly more powerful than the XPA Gen3.
I've got to be honest here guys....
I haven't seen a single claim that the Gen3 amps don't sound as good or better than the older generations of amps FROM SOMEONE WHO DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE LISTENING TO AN AMP WITH AN SMPS. We get that you have to defend the mothership, but I have to say this is some of the flimsiest logic around, even for this board - to attempt to dismiss the overall Gen 3 review consensus due to your beloved expectation bias. But 2 can play, if that's the game - I've got to be honest here guys.... I haven't seen a single claim that the the Gen3 amps don't sound as good or better than the older generations of amps FROM SOMEONE WHO DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE LISTENING TO A SUBSTANTIALLY MORE EXPENSIVE AMP, NOT ONLY WITH THE NEWEST CIRCUITRY BUT ASSEMBLED IN THE US oF A. People who were expecting an upgrade in sound due to the substantial price premium, and yet came away thinking otherwise. Then there's this - I haven't seen a single claim that the PA-1's sound absolutely superb FROM SOMEONE WHO DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE LISTENING TO A CLASS D AMP - ONE WITH AN SMPS NO LESS. This one is a double whammy since not only is Class D greatly frowned upon here, it too is torroid free. You know they definitely were expecting it to be a weak product.
There are definitely the SMPS-haters on here, but no way is that everyone who was disappointed in the Gen3.
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KeithL
Administrator
Posts: 9,928
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Post by KeithL on Feb 7, 2020 15:32:01 GMT -5
Absolutely!
That's why we have a return policy.
I thought the Emotiva pa1 sounded terrific while the more expensive and better build quality XPA-2 generation three sounded worse than entry level a-300 which has a fan. The pa1 bested both and sound very close to the xpa1/2 gen 2 amps. So I am not sure that it is all bias. It is true that I don’t care for switch mode power supplies but if the sound is fantastic I Think that is more important. Plus remember that all of us on this forum a big fans of Emotiva. Why would we not want the bread and butter line to sound great? All opinions are subjective , ... the best way is to try the amplifier in your own system, ... you can always return
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Post by routlaw on Feb 7, 2020 17:36:58 GMT -5
@keithl, as always thanks for your insightful and informative post. FWIW, I love the new DR amps, have two of the DR-1's and the DR-3 and to my ears in my system they are significantly superior to the older XPA-1's, 2's or 3's, Gen 2. I owned those amps for over 6 years and totally enjoyed them but by comparison to the Gen 3's they now sound a bit dull and lifeless to me. Other than being very busy lately with other projects the only reason I have not written a full on review of these is due to threads like this. My conclusion would fall on deaf ears and apparently few if any would believe it anyway so whats the point.
There are 18 reviews on the Emotiva website just for the XPA-2 Gen 3, and every single review gives this amp a 5 Star rating but the one that takes the cake is this quote below from Edward H. Read it and weep!
Fantastic amplifier
I have a Krell trio 300 that retails for $11000 and have using it for two years. Decided to send it in one upgrade for it’s XD certification. Purchase the Emotiva XPA-2 to replace the Krell in my system Temporarily until the Krell sent back to me. Long story short. I connected the XPA-2 Gen 3..I was amazed at how detailed the music sounded better than mine Krell that cost 10 times as much as My new Emotiva XPA-2. I also bought An Emotiva XPA-5 to complete My Home entertainment system.
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Post by rbk123 on Feb 7, 2020 19:18:42 GMT -5
But here's the part that I think you and a lot of other folks are missing....An amplifier has two entirely separate parts: the amplifier and the power supply. Amplifiers do indeed sound different, for a variety of reasons, and in a variety of ways. HOWEVER, unless there is some flaw in its design, the power supply should NOT affect the way the amplifier sounds.
I'm not missing anything. There are 8 posts before yours and only 1 even mentioned power supply; you're the one who brought SMPS's into this discussion, not anyone else. I have nothing against SMPS's, but a power supply *can* affect the sound in a variety of ways - whether noise or insufficient capacity or other - and that can even come from properly designed ps's. But I agree, it *shouldn't*. |
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, ... the best way is to try the amplifier in your own system, ... you can always return 
