thanks for reply
i got the XPA-1 delivered by DHL a week back , the packaging was extremely good and it took about a week for it to reach me here in india .I shipped them individually bcoz of the weight issues as i had a limit of 60kg /shipment via borderlinx
once i got them did i realise how huge these guys were , i immediately called up emotiva to know about the power requirements and vincent chen suggested the XPA-1's cud share a single 15amp socket or even better would be to feed them single lines ,so i have fed them single 15amp sockets which i got from my adjacent room
These guys are BIG i mean really big ,it took me a lot of effort to carry them to my HT room located on the second floor
I dont yet have any racks to accomadate these big guys ,so for the time being its placed on the floor
I did realise that the spkr terminals are really wide apart almost 15'' apart as my previous set up was bi-wired i preffered the same set up ,but this required opening up my Chord odyssey bi-wire spkr cables
Build QualityHave never owned such big power amps and to be frank this is my first mono blocks and the fact that inclined me towards the XPA-1's is my recent purchase of the processor UMC-1 which i found to be a huge upgrade over my onkyo AVR875 ,and the best part of emotiva is the pricing
so i took the plunge and ordered for the pair of XPA-1's during the sale period and got a good 200$ discount too ,Man thats an awesome price for a pair of monoblocks with such monstorous specs, but still had doubts how the unit would be as the closest to these blocks i have come across (only on print) were the Parasound JC1 which were priced @ 6000$ a pair and i cud never afford those in the near future
Well out of the box the XPA-1 looked massive needs two people to move this thing around and coming to the build its nothing short of a tank , i mean the top part of the amp though being 20'' in depth is so solid that it never dips down you cud easily stand on it , the front panel is simple with only the led display (bule lights) and that cud be turned off too , i only wish the entire amp was black they cud have done without the aluminium side plates.....in one word the build of the amp is ROCK SOLID.
CONNECTIONS AND GEARi am running the xpa-1's with 2 seperate 15AMP sockets,no other equipments share this circuit (have done this following the advice from emotiva , according to them the XPA-1's cud share a single 15AMP socket but if provided with single sockets of 15AMP it cud be better and ideal)
Cables- Chord odyssey bi-wire speaker wires and Chord chameleon plus inter connects
CDP- Marantz SA11S1 SACDP
PRE-AMP --Have used the Vincent SA31MK tube preamp for stereo and Emotiva UMC-1 for movies
Speakers - JAMO C809 pack with Defenitive Technology Trinity sub
THE SOUNDmy Present set up also includes the Vincent SP331MK a hybrid tube based power amp rated 150 X 2 @ 8ohms and the first 10watss in pure class A which i have used till now and have loved them and had preffered the vincents over much bigger and better known brands . The XPA-1 's have now been set in place of the vincent SP331MK
First impression - as per most reviews i read before purchase of these monoblocks it says that these guys need about 100hrs of break in time, OK i have just run them for abt 10-15 hrs till now which also includes a couple of movie watching.
The first thing you notice about the XPA-1 is the tremendous low frequency it diggs out , earlier i used my def tech trinity for stereo too but with these guys i wud negate the use of sub for music .
The low frequency put out by the XPA-1's are very deep, tight and hits you right in the gut and at times with some recordings i found the bass too much to handle . i would say the bass put out by these amps was almost on par with my sub
With bass heavy spkrs it cud take a while to fine tune these amps,anyway i cud activate tone controls in my preamp ,this got things under control .
These guys play loud i mean really loud when u hit 12'o clock position in the preamp it cud play to ear splitting levels @ even the loudest levels the sound was crystal clear the mids where dead centered and the highs smooth and airy and the soundstage was huge ,will keep you posted after further run in time
Movies- with movies the sound of my HT was different ,i was amazed at the kind of difference it made by adding on the XPA-1's for my mains ,i chkd out the BD of Clash of the titans , Kick ass and The losers .The blasts had tremendous impact then before , i dint have to crank up the volume to get room shaking effects like before ,overall i found the XPA-1's to have a mojor positive effect on the overall performance of my HT
When taken to reference levels the overall sound is dynamite, and also the overall low frequencies in the DTS-HD soundtrack appeared to be more powerful than before . Bcoz of the raw power the XPA-1 outputs the seperation of the front L/R channels is dramatic which was missing in my earlier set up
OVERALL if you are looking at a power amp and you crave for power these are the blocks to get and that too at a price thats
i love my music and movies at a much higher levels than normal ,have never done any sort of measurements with meters ,i belive my ears are the best judges and these XPA-1's meet my requirements perfectly ,i wud definetly replace my other channels (C and sorrounds ) too with Emo power blocks very soon .
will get back to more detailed review for stereo after some hours of usage
thanks and regards
