XPA-5 first thoughts

[drmark]

First and foremost let me say of the XPA-5, pure value for the money spent. If you have a lot of cash laying around, get the Halo for $4500, if you don’t, the XPA-5 is a great buy and I would get one again.

2/8/12 update. Got the A51 in last Thursday night; friends and family nicknamed it "The Beast." Understanding the first 8 watts are pure class A, I have been having a great time with it. I will break it down by day. The A51 has been on since Thursday at 8pm. Will give it 300 hours break-in.
Thursday, it was a close call compared with an XPA-5, dynamics and sound is very close. Sure as heck not an almost $4,000 improvement.
Friday listening session, wife was bugging me to get up as a joke, so I did. She came down and spent the next 2-hours listening to music and 5.1 concerts with me. Sound seems more detailed and controlled.
Sat-Sun, Amp still breaking in, small improvement in detail.
Monday was epic, I find I am sitting too close to my speakers. By moving my seating back 3 feet, the 51 really opened up and became very detailed. One obvious difference, as I turn the volume up, the amp really maintains control of the music. I am hearing things in my music I never heard before. Oleta Adams – Get here, never heard her voice so in control/vibrant.

Ok the next 2 days I hear little improvements so pretty happy with the results. What I hear now is all detail and control.

[The Mad Norseman]

Feb 8, 2012 15:42:41 GMT -5 drmark said:

First and foremost let me say of the XPA-5, pure value for the money spent. If you have a lot of cash laying around, get the Halo for $4500, if you don’t, the XPA-5 is a great buy and I would get one again.

2/8/12 update. Got the A51 in last Thursday night; friends and family nicknamed it "The Beast." Understanding the first 8 watts are pure class A, I have been having a great time with it. I will break it down by day. The A51 has been on since Thursday at 8pm. Will give it 300 hours break-in.
Thursday, it was a close call compared with an XPA-5, dynamics and sound is very close. Sure as heck not an almost $4,000 improvement.
Friday listening session, wife was bugging me to get up as a joke, so I did. She came down and spent the next 2-hours listening to music and 5.1 concerts with me. Sound seems more detailed and controlled.
Sat-Sun, Amp still breaking in, small improvement in detail.
Monday was epic, I find I am sitting too close to my speakers. By moving my seating back 3 feet, the 51 really opened up and became very detailed. One obvious difference, as I turn the volume up, the amp really maintains control of the music. I am hearing things in my music I never heard before. Oleta Adams – Get here, never heard her voice so in control/vibrant.

Ok the next 2 days I hear little improvements so pretty happy with the results. What I hear now is all detail and control.

drmark,
I'm very interested in your ongoing impressions of the Parasound A51 five channel amp, as I am considering that one myself (or their new Halo A31 amp, 250w x 3, w/gain adjustments possible +/-6db).
Now that you've lived with the A51 hooked up for a few months do you have any more to say about it? Thanks!

[drmark]

Please PM me your email or phone #. I would rather keep this focused on the great value the XPA-5 is and not detract from that here.
I am happy to give you more information

[eriku]

Hi guys,
( this is my first post, tried to find a "Hello Emotiva world" one but I failed )

This is an amazing thread --- learning a lot from you guys about these precious amps.

Great review, great comparison and most important: Great play-and-feel Amp efficiency review. In my case numbers do are important but nothing like the in-house review.

I am the "new kid" in Emotiva world... just got my puppies last friday and still getting in into my head. I read about the 300hrs brake in... is that so?

My mexican ears are pretty used to Yamaha AVR, my last one was the RX-A2000 great amp for the buck with lots of features that my new audiophile grade UMC1 lacks... who cares! I am pretty happy to be part of the Big Boys now!

Any recommedations for my XPA-5 setup? Some DSP within the UMC-1 ? Is "direct mode" is the best for DTS-HD MA playback and XPA-5 to cranck?

thank you,
eriku

[drmark]

Good afternoon eriku, before I would recommend anything, what components do you have and are you happy with them?

[audiohead]

Nice review!Luvin my XPA-5!

[roadrunner]

drmark

Nice review. Just curious why there would be a need for 300 hour break-in for a solid state amp. Is that what Parasound recommended? Solid state gear usually needs little to no break-in. I am not surprised to hear the improvement in your speakers performance after moving them. Speaker placement can have huge impact on sound quality -- even changes of a few inches.

You may not be aware of it, but Emotiva's XPA amps also run in pure Class A for about the first 10 Watts. This was one of the first things I learned about the XPA Series amps during the first Emofest when Lonnie and Dan were explaining the architecture on the first day.

Have you played with the +/- 6dB gain control to see what its value would be for your system? I was just curious what impact it has and whether you found it useful.

Keep us updated on your findings. Enjoy your new toys.

[eriku]

Jul 6, 2012 14:05:06 GMT -5 drmark said:

Good afternoon eriku, before I would recommend anything, what components do you have and are you happy with them?

Hi drmark! Thank you for replying back,
this is me now:

EMOTIVA UMC-1,
EMOTIVA XPA-5,
SONY PS3 and SONY SACD player
(2)B&W 683, (4)B&W 685, (1)B&W HTM61 & Super Cube 1
55" Samsung 8000 Series 3D LED TV

of course as you can see... I have two 685s just sitting there! Totally not hooked up =(

still working with the Direct, DSP modes
I think my "bottleneck" to audiophile heaven is my SUPERDUPPER PS3 ...now.

eriku

[drmark]

Sorry to take so long to respond, been on vacation.
Richard at Parasound told me to give it around 100 hours. I found at the 450 mark I had the last noticable improvement. As for the gain, I have not played with that. Have not found the need yet. The information on the XPA-5 shows Class A to 5 watts. It's somewhere on the site, did they change that to 10?

eriku, I use the Marantz AV7005 and love the audessey settings. I have an active room and found that putting blankets in front of my LR speakers and then running the setup, worked. I did build an HTPC with windows 7 on it. I used the assassin guide from AVSforum.com
www.avsforum.com/t/1302559/assassins-simple-beginner-htpc-buying-guide
This guy really knows his stuff, great guide and glad I used it. I have XBMC and JRiver for my media players. XBMC for video and JRiver for audio.

But the main solution is trying all the modes and seeing what sounds the best for you. I fell into the blankets when my son had a sleep over and his friends threw them in front of the speakers after the party. I was to lazy to move them and stunned at the sound. Much playing around and they are staying where they are. Really calmed the highs down.

[drmark]

Here is a post I had on another forum. I purchased a 7 channel Marantz amp MM8077 and a pair of Dali Mentor 2 speakers.
I tried the Marantz vs XPA-5 vs Parasound A51 with interesting results. I was unable to hear any difference between all 3 amps on 2 different speakers. It was not till I hit the Dali Helicons $4k a pair that I was able to hear a clear improvement.

I never believed the all amps sound the same argument. With the Mentor 2's ($2800-pair) and the Ikon 7's ($2200 pair) I would say yes clearly all amps do sound the same. But the 300 MKII Helicons ($4,000 pair) proved it wrong.
Matching amps with a speaker, never thought about it. Now I will insist on trying before buying. I'll probably replace the Marantz later this year with a couple of Parasound A52's or A51's. The Marantz is no slouch and at $2400 not cheap either. It never occured to me that the Mentors would be so different from the Helicons.
So would more speakers out there not pass the Power amp is different test?

[briank]

Mar 27, 2013 14:15:49 GMT -5 drmark said:

Here is a post I had on another forum. I purchased a 7 channel Marantz amp MM8077 and a pair of Dali Mentor 2 speakers.
I tried the Marantz vs XPA-5 vs Parasound A51 with interesting results. I was unable to hear any difference between all 3 amps on 2 different speakers. It was not till I hit the Dali Helicons $4k a pair that I was able to hear a clear improvement.

I never believed the all amps sound the same argument. With the Mentor 2's ($2800-pair) and the Ikon 7's ($2200 pair) I would say yes clearly all amps do sound the same. But the 300 MKII Helicons ($4,000 pair) proved it wrong.
Matching amps with a speaker, never thought about it. Now I will insist on trying before buying. I'll probably replace the Marantz later this year with a couple of Parasound A52's or A51's. The Marantz is no slouch and at $2400 not cheap either. It never occured to me that the Mentors would be so different from the Helicons.
So would more speakers out there not pass the Power amp is different test?

Yes, my old Def Techs made it more difficult to hear differences in gear while its pretty easy with my current speakers. The bad thing is the more detail a speaker provides, the more picky they are with gear. I've had to make some upgrades to get the sound just how I like it.

[drmark]

Happy good morning to all. While this might not be the last update...

I thought it time for another update. Bought a Parasound A21 and some more speakers. Now with
Marantz 8801 Pre/Pro
Parasound A21 front LR Dali Epicon 6 in Walnut
Parasound A51 C and side/rear 4. Center Dali Epicon Vokel, Dali Helicon 300's MK1 and 2's.
HTPC home built from Assassins guide. <Heck of a guide. Using Wireworld Silver HDMI high-data cables.
SVS PB12/Ultra2 sub
Wireworld Silver XLR’s, don’t get the platinum’s, you lose detail.
Belden 5000 series Cable for all my speaker cable. Great for long runs.

HUGE shout-out to Emotiva. Without you guys none of this would have happened. Thanks to your wonderful amps I was exposed to what is possible, and enjoy music again.

Plus if this additional review is not appropriate for your site. I 100% understand and will take these extra comments down.

Tweaks and thoughts
A friend of mine brought over a USB battery. He hooked it up to the SSD drive on my HTPC. What a significant difference it made. The battery stabilized the music. Highs settled down and a lot more detail. Sonically, there is a lot to be gained from a battery.
We also did a shoot out between Win 8.1 and Win 7. No discernible difference between the 2.

Speaker wire, I invested a couple of days ago in anticable speaker wire Level 3. Waiting for it to arrive.
Tried Wireworld bi-wire cables, meh, not that good. Monsterwire Z something, total junk, loss of detail and bottom of all cable I tried. Also I happened to come across some pure silver speaker cable. First thoughts were the mids and bottom end sound were pronounced and very nice. Highs were missing. Went to Pink Floyds Time and the clocks as they chimed were missing about 50% of the data. The sound was just missing. I might use this cable for bi-wiring the bottom of a speaker, not the top end.
No matter the cable I used on the speakers the Belden always seemed the most open and brought out the best in the speaker.
The Emotiva RCA cables, I use them for my headphone amp/DAC. They really sound good and make a difference over a lot of cables out there. Love to see an Emotiva USB cable. One area I have not played with yet. 

2 things.
1. For a time I bought into running my equipment thought power conditioners. Amps as well. Doing that resulted in a loss of sound stage and the image collapsed. Also depending on how hard I drove an amp, the amps would stutter. Plug them in the wall for the best results. I don’t know of a conditioner or surge protector that can keep an amp fully powered.

2. Depending on your hearing and setup, don’t be afraid to play with cables. You might be amazed at the difference.
XLR’s
I have tried many, 3 stand out
Wireworld Silver Eclipse™ 7 $750
Anticable 4.1 "Reference PLUS" Xhadow XLR $550
Synergistic Research Element Series Interconnects $3,700

Between the 3 a friend of mine and I played with these. The opinion was in a blind test we both would have been hard pressed to tell the difference between the 3.
Initial impressions, “Anyone who says it’s all in our head. On this I would agree; that is a distinct possibility.”
Of the 3, The Wireworld is what I own, Sounds great and no complaints.
Anticable, the sound just “seemed” a little thin compared to the other 2.
Synergistic Research, I did not hear much difference and would be hard pressed to pick it out against the Wireworld Silver. Definitely “to me” not worth the $3,700 per pair.

Complaint, why can’t you buy XLR’s or RCA’s in singles? I would love to get 3 for my front. Nope, have to buy in 2-packs

[garbulky]

Apr 17, 2014 9:50:35 GMT -5 drmark said:

Happy good morning to all. While this might not be the last update...

A friend of mine brought over a USB battery. He hooked it up to the SSD drive on my HTPC. What a significant difference it made. The battery stabilized the music. Highs settled down and a lot more detail. Sonically, there is a lot to be gained from a battery.
We also did a shoot out between Win 8.1 and Win 7. No discernible difference between the 2.

Thanks for giving us your detailed thoughts. I consider myself pretty open minded but I did a double take on the SSD via USB battery power making a difference. I hope you don't think I didn't deny you heard a difference or am trying to troll you. I'm just curious as to why you think it may be different.
The reason I did a double take was because...
The SSD goes via USB power to the computer motherboard which does not have battery power. Also from what I'm gathering the data isn't "real time" here like in a TOSLINK or SPDIF digital cable to a DAC. I.e. prone to jitter.

The data being sent at this point is a "program". Not dependent on timing or jitter. And then it is buffered onto the local memory on the motherboard. and it is here that the player will process/output the data. As in all of it has been checked (to eliminate errors) and buffered.
From there the media player will decode the sound and send it out as PCM data. If anyting I would imagine this place right here (where the PCM data is being sent out may benefit from battery power.

I'm not going to nitpick your response or anything. I just was wondering as this is the first time I've heard of this kind of improvement.

[drmark]

When my friend brought the cable interface for the SSD and the battery, there were 3 of us there. The highs on my Epicon 6's at the time was a little sharp and I was moving to adding panels to control it. After the battery, the highs went from being sharp to having detail, accuracy of sound and no more sharpness. I was at a friends home last Sunday to setup his new Epicon 5.1 system. He bought the Epicon 6's, 2's for rears and the Vokel center.

I am hearing the exact same "to me" sharpness. I will be trying the batter on his system. The difference is significant and immediate.
I never would have tried it. We have a group of 6-8 people who have decided to try weird stuff or upgrades and we show them off. A lot of the ideas are crap and do nothing or make things worse. The idea was to only have one person waste money on stuff and bend the cost curve. This idea worked for who knows why.

Easy to test, swap it and play music, the difference is immediate.

[thevinoman]

Your sig shows 36tb Synology server.....36tb? Really? Are you really the Library of Congress?

[drmark]

Sorry.... that needs to be updated, now at over 50 tb. Looking at adding a second server with 8 6tb drives.
I have been ripping my blue rays and CD's. I want everything to be online for instant access. Thanx to emotive I have been going nuts buying CD's, HI-rez albums and SACD's. Movies OMG, what a change in the movies from just a receiver.

[garbulky]

Apr 18, 2014 7:55:30 GMT -5 drmark said:

When my friend brought the cable interface for the SSD and the battery, there were 3 of us there. The highs on my Epicon 6's at the time was a little sharp and I was moving to adding panels to control it. After the battery, the highs went from being sharp to having detail, accuracy of sound and no more sharpness. I was at a friends home last Sunday to setup his new Epicon 5.1 system. He bought the Epicon 6's, 2's for rears and the Vokel center.

I am hearing the exact same "to me" sharpness. I will be trying the batter on his system. The difference is significant and immediate.
I never would have tried it. We have a group of 6-8 people who have decided to try weird stuff or upgrades and we show them off. A lot of the ideas are crap and do nothing or make things worse. The idea was to only have one person waste money on stuff and bend the cost curve. This idea worked for who knows why.

Easy to test, swap it and play music, the difference is immediate.

Hey props to you! I'm glad you guys are figuring stuff out!

[drmark]

This is my latest upgrade. I got Marantz to loan me the first AV7702 pro/pro in the USA. ATMOS is where it's at now.
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