UPA-1, USP-1, and XDA-1

[crzycuyler]

My current setup:
-B&W 685
-AVR 3312
-ASW610
-PS3
-MacBook Pro

I am planning on upgrading to B&W 683, B&W CM9, or Sonus Faber Toy Towers. Should I sell the Denon AVR and buy the UPA-1, USP-1, and XDA-1 separates? What will be the improvement?

Thanks guys!

[hemster]

Welcome to the lounge.

Separates usually almost always lead to an improvement in sound quality. However, please describe your intended usage (music.movies/both..?) and we can better advise on things. The B&Ws are fine speakers and you're thinking of moving from monitors to floor-standing speakers. Do you already use a subwoofer with the 685s? I'm sure you know there's a huge difference in price between the 683s and CM9s. If your budget is this flexible, have you considered other speaker brands?

[crzycuyler]

Thanks for the reply. I have the B&W ASW610 subwoofer with this setup. My reason for looking into both B&W and Sonus Faber is that I work at Best Buy and get a substantial discount on these products. Nearly half off! Here's how the usage plays out: I'll be using the speakers probably 60/40 (movies/music), but my priority for quality is more like 40/60 (movies/music). I include video games in the movies section. I take music listening very seriously. I am a very analytical listener. Are these amps and speakers known to be neutral and accurate?

Thanks

[maximumkahuna]

I'd think about adding the XDA-1 for the macbook and an XPA-5 for more power. Keep the Denon, the 3312 is a nice unit.

[roadrunner]

Where sound quality is a serious issue with you, I would definitely add the XDA-1 and the USP-1 to handle your 2-channel music. The sound quality reproduced by the USP-1 is a major improvement over the analog output from your 3312. Then use the HT ByPass function of the USP-1 to smoothly integrate the HT processor, amps and speakers with the 2-channel music system.

You will probably want to power the front speakers (LCR) via Emotiva power amps. This will give you better overall performance for HT and music.

[crzycuyler]

How does the XPA-5 compare to the UPA-1 for music listening? I plan for all listening to be music/movies through stereo for the time being, but would upgrade to surround in the future when I have more space. I'm also considering getting the Oppo BDP-95, as I can get it half off.

[mfeust]

Mar 31, 2012 7:00:50 GMT -5 crzycuyler said:

How does the XPA-5 compare to the UPA-1 for music listening? I plan for all listening to be music/movies through stereo for the time being, but would upgrade to surround in the future when I have more space. I'm also considering getting the Oppo BDP-95, as I can get it half off.

If I were you I would look at your cost on the Oppo. There is no way Best Buy has that much markup on the Oppo's.

[crzycuyler]

I'll double check, but i think its near 600

[stiehl11]

Mar 31, 2012 7:00:50 GMT -5 crzycuyler said:

How does the XPA-5 compare to the UPA-1 for music listening? I plan for all listening to be music/movies through stereo for the time being, but would upgrade to surround in the future when I have more space. I'm also considering getting the Oppo BDP-95, as I can get it half off.

The biggest difference is that the UPA-1 only has one channel. I know I'm stating the obvious, here. But you'd be surprised with the questions that have been asked. I hate to assume that you know this and be incorrect. The UPA-1/2/5/7 use similar moduals as the XPA-3/5 so any of these amps will have a similar sound to them. That being said, I have the UPA-2 and two different X-series amps. I feel that the UPA-2 is less "punchy" than either of my X-amps (YMMV). All Emotiva amps are top notch and are very similar in sound to one another.

So, what music do you listen to and how loud do you want it to go?

[crzycuyler]

I realize they are nearly the same, but some people swear they are different and others say they're the same. I will be listening to all types of music ranging from bluegrass, folk, classical, to electronic, dubstep, and rock. It's all over the place. My main goal is to have the most neutral system while leaning towards the needs of an analytical listener. I play and write music. My mind is always following bass lines, harmonies, and whatever unique additions to the song that most don't listen for. The speakers will also be used for movies and video games.

Of the speakers mentioned, what would be the best neutral/accurate speaker tending to analytical needs? (Strange question, I know)

I like the idea of monoblocks, but if there is truly no advantage here, then I best grow up. Although I get great discounts at Best Buy and Magnolia, I am not sure that half of many of those products can compare to Emotiva at whole value. Can anyone say anything to this?

Thanks so much

EDIT: I will be playing at low, medium, and loud volumes equally. It is most important that the low volume doesn't harm audio quality. I live in an apartment with two room mates. I am a late night guy, so the volume has to come down then for neighbors and roomies. I will occasional travel with my equipment to take advantage of the no neighbor factor of my friends and family.

[copperband]

Mar 31, 2012 11:39:19 GMT -5 crzycuyler said:

I'll double check, but i think its near 600

Wow! Oppo 95 at $600 to buy? That's a no brainer!

[stiehl11]

Mar 31, 2012 12:07:02 GMT -5 crzycuyler said:

I realize they are nearly the same, but some people swear they are different and others say they're the same. I will be listening to all types of music ranging from bluegrass, folk, classical, to electronic, dubstep, and rock. It's all over the place. My main goal is to have the most neutral system while leaning towards the needs of an analytical listener. I play and write music. My mind is always following bass lines, harmonies, and whatever unique additions to the song that most don't listen for. The speakers will also be used for movies and video games.

Of the speakers mentioned, what would be the best neutral/accurate speaker tending to analytical needs? (Strange question, I know)

I like the idea of monoblocks, but if there is truly no advantage here, then I best grow up. Although I get great discounts at Best Buy and Magnolia, I am not sure that half of many of those products can compare to Emotiva at whole value. Can anyone say anything to this?

Thanks so much

EDIT: I will be playing at low, medium, and loud volumes equally. It is most important that the low volume doesn't harm audio quality. I live in an apartment with two room mates. I am a late night guy, so the volume has to come down then for neighbors and roomies. I will occasional travel with my equipment to take advantage of the no neighbor factor of my friends and family.

I found that the UPA series is a bit more laid back than the X-series. I found that the bass response from my XPA-2 to be the best of the 3 Emotiva amps I have. All 3 are extremely clear in the high end and middle frequencies. I have not experienced any cross-talk between the channels of my amps either so I feel with the level of channel separation that mono-blocks are not a necessity with Emotiva.

As for speakers listed I feel that the B&W speakers are the closest to what I have. The 685 are similar to my PC-1/PC-1.5 and the CM9 falls short of my PC-3; especially in the bass department. I've done head to head comparisons with those speakers taking mine in to listen side-by-side to listen to them. As a former classical musician I can attest that, with properly mastered media, my set up is ideal for classical music in it's ability to reproduce the sounds and instrumentation of classical instruments. For Pop and Electronic (Synthesized/Synthetic) music my Phase Tech speakers will reproduce them but not at the levels that a good sub will. My SVS sub shakes the walls for both Pop music (and all it's variants) and HT.

As far as traveling with a USP-1/XDA-1/XPA-2/5/(2)PC-3/SVS sub you're a better man than I if you're going to go that route. Even a USP-1/XDA-1/XPA-2/5/B&W CM9/SVS sub would be difficult in my opinion.

All my recommendations are based upon my opinion and your likes/dislikes are likely different than mine. So, as always, take my opinions with the necessary dosage of grains of salt.

[Dr. Feel Good]

I've owned & still own Denon AVR and have used them both to power all speakers and partials. I used my Denon AVR 5700 to power my DCM Speakers which have a 700 watt ratting. All that Aside, I updated to the XDA 1 first which made my CD's sound amazing. Then I added the USP 1. and just recently have added a tube buffer to the USP 1's output which has just amazed me.

I were you i'd do the following:
USP 1 and XDA 1 + XPA 2 + Oppo + B&W = This would be the best 2 channel setup you're going to get. the B&W are amazing and the CM9 line will bring utter satisfaction to your ears. you're going to find yourself listening to more music and you'll find yourself never getting fatigued from listening to music.

Add the Denon into the mix for Surround Duties. w/the Denon's L/R channels not being used there is going to be lots of head room left for the surrounds which you'll never use.( w/out the l/r load the transformers will always have ample juice to power anything surround can throw at them)
I think you have the smaller Subwoofer, 8", I have the bigger 10 w/500 W amp. I found that once I added an Elemental Design eQ.2, two channel sub eq to the system the sub blended in absolutely beautifully w/out any boom at all, and my room treatment is non existing at this time, it's a big room w/Tile Floors.

If you notice, I'm concentrating here on building your 2 channel portion of the system first, then you can add a XP5 down the line w/a new 7.1 Denon 5807 pre/pro HT into the mix and have the best system for a reasonable 10k that is going to sound like a 50k system.

Good Luck
Doc

[crzycuyler]

Thanks for the replies, everyone. I need all the help I can get.

I'm really not looking to spend as much money as mentioned. I'm actually a student in college, but find ways so save money very successfully. I want to take advantage of the discounts that I can get at Best Buy and Magnolia. This is why B&W and Sonus Faber are enticing. I get them 45% off. So a pair of 683s is $800, the CM9s are $1600 for the pair. I need to check the Sonus Faber Toy Towers, but I believe its about $1400. Does anyone have any experience with these speakers? If anyone wants to recommend anything from Monitor Audio, Def Tech, or Martin Logan, be my guest. I know not much about these brands. I do however want the most neutral/natural/accurate. I'm a purest at heart. This leads me also to express a reason for my love of mono blocks; I can upgrade in the future to use more mono blocks and have a uniform system. This train of thought makes the XPA-5 seem very appealing, but I am worried I would be falling short of what I can achieve in the X series and wind up not even using the 3 other channels for a year or several. I would certainly go for the XPA-2 if I knew I would stick entirely to stereo. I've got this unfortunate OCD problem

[stiehl11]

Mar 31, 2012 23:23:08 GMT -5 crzycuyler said:

Thanks for the replies, everyone. I need all the help I can get.

I'm really not looking to spend as much money as mentioned. I'm actually a student in college, but find ways so save money very successfully. I want to take advantage of the discounts that I can get at Best Buy and Magnolia. This is why B&W and Sonus Faber are enticing. I get them 45% off. So a pair of 683s is $800, the CM9s are $1600 for the pair. I need to check the Sonus Faber Toy Towers, but I believe its about $1400. Does anyone have any experience with these speakers? If anyone wants to recommend anything from Monitor Audio, Def Tech, or Martin Logan, be my guest. I know not much about these brands. I do however want the most neutral/natural/accurate. I'm a purest at heart. This leads me also to express a reason for my love of mono blocks; I can upgrade in the future to use more mono blocks and have a uniform system. This train of thought makes the XPA-5 seem very appealing, but I am worried I would be falling short of what I can achieve in the X series and wind up not even using the 3 other channels for a year or several. I would certainly go for the XPA-2 if I knew I would stick entirely to stereo. I've got this unfortunate OCD problem

If you want to stretch your dollar; buy used or second hand. Just picked up a pair of PC-1.5 speakers (every bit as good, if not better than the B&W 683) for $450 shipped. These were new, in box and never used. Picked up an older pair last year for $80 and there's very little difference between them, sonically. For these I did a little rework to make them nice and no one can tell any difference between them and the PC speakers that I bought new.

Currently there are 2 Phase Tech PC-3.5 on ebay for less than $500 each and 2 pairs of Phase Tech PC-9 (equivalent sonically to B&W 800 series speakers of the day) for about $1,000. I'm sure that there are similar deals out there for B&W speakers but likely not at such steep discounts because of their name recognition. Do a search for these speakers on the Internet and see if you can get a better speaker than what you can pay for new.

[crzycuyler]

I'm sorry. I just can't. I've never even heard of the brand. I'd have to at least demo them, and I don't see that possible. Like I said, I am pretty OCD. This risk would drive me crazy.

When you did side-by-side tests, what amp did you use for the CM9s and PC-3s?

[stiehl11]

Apr 1, 2012 0:06:18 GMT -5 crzycuyler said:

I'm sorry. I just can't. I've never even heard of the brand. I'd have to at least demo them, and I don't see that possible. Like I said, I am pretty OCD. This risk would drive me crazy.

When you did side-by-side tests, what amp did you use for the CM9s and PC-3s?

I totally understand. I wouldn't want to buy a speaker brand/series without auditioning them myself, either. But, considering the cost of used equipment versus new; once you get a speaker picked out, check out what they're going for used. A brand like B&W is going to have excellent quality control. A 805 will sound like an 805 no matter where you get it from. A guy I work with picked up a pair of 8.3s at last year's Emofest (Emotiva's yearly festival) for $800 slightly blemished but otherwise perfect. A paint pen for $4 dollars at Hobby Lobby took care of the blemish and they look brand new now. He was originally looking at the B&W CM9 until I steered him in a different path.

The exact amps I don't recall but I believe that for the 685s we used a Rotel and for the CM9 we used Classe. I might have those reversed, but we didn't use AVRs or lightweight amps. When I listened to the 800 series we used McIntosh exclusively.

[brubacca]

Honestly with your connection with best buy I would investigate the Arcam rDAC for use with the MacBook. It will be close in price to the xda and the USB implementation is asynchronous. You must listen to the sonus faber and the B&W, to me they sound very different. When I was in college I would have preferred the B&W, now I would prefer the Sonus faber.

Keep the denon. Add the external amp for use with the towers.

Lastly, the denon has Pre-amp outputs. As a last step to wrangle the most out of your stereo listening, add the usp ( or XSP) and utilize the ht bypass function. Doing his you can use the usp for music and the denon for ht/games.

Good luck

[stiehl11]

I'm going to have to go out to Cool Springs to see their Magnolia store. Sounds like they have a few things they didn't have last time I was there.