UPA 700 vs 13yr Yamaha AVR..Real world difference?

[dougc]

Hi I'm kinda new on here and don't even know if I'm posting this in a proper place. Anyway I have a 13yr. old Yamaha RX-V596 AVR supposedly rated at 100 x 5. We all know how that goes . Anyway lets back up a second. I am about 65% midrange deaf, being a cabinet/ custom furniture builder for the last 30yrs. You know the kind that never wears ear plugs and constantly saying "What ?"or looking at my wife and saying"what did they say". I finally set out on a mission to build some new speakers to blow my Paradigms away. I started out with the subs (2) L/R. Then moved on to the mains and center. My L/C/R speakers all consist of 2-Vifa Pl 18wo midbass, 2-BG neo8pdr's mid and 1-BG neo3pdr tweet. All I can say is WOW, what an improvement! I definitly suceeded ;D. The problem is, even though I suceeded in blowing away my Paradigms the midrange and highs are stiil not at full potential. Anyone who has followed reviews on BG (Bohlender Graebener)speakers, the reviews all say" how scary and life like they sound" So the I started looking at my amp source yea that 13 yr. old Yamaha. So I pulled out my shelved Carver TFM 55x amp. and hooked it up to my mains. WOW once again what an improvement. My mains came alive, timber and openness.My mids and highs came to life and the extra wattage of my relieved Yamaha brought my center and surrounds to life. My wife even noticed the difference after all she's happy with a clock radio. Then my heart droped as my wife said,"Good your finally done". I replied, yeah honey. While in the back of my head im thinking( NOT )I think I finally found the problem, the amp in my Yamaha is a peice of .... .Anyway before I get served divorse papers over this. Do you really think the UPA 700 will solve my problems? I'm not after volume but sound quality.What has sold me on the UPA line besides budget is bringing the mids and highs to life. Although their arn't that many reviews on the 500 or 700. So I am a little sceptical. Any replies would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Doug C.

[Deleted]

It sounds to me like you might benefit from some EQ tweaks. Try bumping up the mid and high bands and see if that doesn't improve the audibility of your current system. A biggger, badder amp will most likely be an improvement, but I would suggest trying the free tweaks first to see what you gain...

-RW-

PS: Doug, you also might want to consider checking to see why your 1st post had sooooo much white space at the bottom....

[garbulky]

www.carversound.com/carver-amplifiers/tfm-55x/
Well that carver is a nice amp. I don't know how much better the new u-series will be. But you don't need to worry about it not being not an improvement over the yamaha. It is IMO, but not necessarily as good as your Carver.

[dougc]

EQ'ing was my first thought. Starting with my X-overs ended up with original set up. Tried 3 different active equalizers while helping at low volumes. Ended up sounding grainy and distorted at higher volumes.Sounds better w/o any eq. I never realized how muffeled or muddy my mid and high freq's sounded with my yamaha until I hooked up the Carver.Unfortunatly my Carver is experiencing a cold solder joint(I think) on one side that has plauged the TFM line.

[dougc]

Why am I getting sooooooooo much blank space below my posts

[dougc]

Test,test

[dougc]

Jan 26, 2013 15:13:12 GMT -5 garbulky said:

www.carversound.com/carver-amplifiers/tfm-55x/
Well that carver is a nice amp. I don't know how much better the new u-series will be. But you don't need to worry about it not being not an improvement over the yamaha. It is IMO, but not necessarily as good as your Carver.

I agree it is a nice amp but only takes care of 2 chanels when working correctly. Its been plagued by a cold solder joint on one side. Common problem of the TFM line.Hopefully I will fix it and sell it.

[wizardofoz]

I think your SIG is the big space issue

[ausman]

I suspect you would notice a difference on 2chan you get more sustained power on power amp than you on a avr's amp section, the fact is you are usually running 3 speakers vs 2 on a power amp, so you will notice a sound..

I suppose you can hear better with 1 mono and 3 stereo power amps vs a 3/2/2 configured avr's amp section for the simple fact you have sustained power vs peak across 3 amps..

now if you had an avr that had 1 amp per channel you might get close to the same output rating of the 7 channel emo amp providing it had the power in the psu..

[dougc]

Jan 30, 2013 9:25:00 GMT -5 ausman said:

I suspect you would notice a difference on 2chan you get more sustained power on power amp than you on a avr's amp section, the fact is you are usually running 3 speakers vs 2 on a power amp, so you will notice a sound..

I suppose you can hear better with 1 mono and 3 stereo power amps vs a 3/2/2 configured avr's amp section for the simple fact you have sustained power vs peak across 3 amps..

now if you had an avr that had 1 amp per channel you might get close to the same output rating of the 7 channel emo amp providing it had the power in the psu..

Sorry I am kinda lost as what your saying. I am running a Peavey IPR 1600 amp (class D) 600 watts to each sub. My main question is .Am I going to get a noticable difference with the UPA 700 over my Yamaha avr??

[Cory Cooper]

Jan 26, 2013 20:28:57 GMT -5 wizardofoz said:

I think your SIG is the big space issue

dougc: You really should try to correct your signature to remove all the extra space.

1. Click on Profile
2. Click on Modify Profile
3. Click in the Signature box and remove all the empty lines. Add your system info if you'd like.
4. Click Modify Profile button

Mods: Can we move this post out of the Emo-Zine Discussion to the proper place?

Regarding your original question: I can tell you I noticed a difference when going from an older Denon AVR-5800 (7x170W) to my XPA-5, especially at low to medium volumes. But, I also added a UMC-1 at the same time.

Changes in SQ between components are so subjective as we all know. The great thing about Emotiva is the 30-day, no questions asked, hassle-free returns policy. You could always try it out in your system, which is a common suggestion here.

Hope that helps a little,

C

[ausman]

for subs no, for mains, center and surrounds more than likely, for the simple fact you have 3 amps in the yamaha vs 7 in the power amp.


170 x 7 (power amp) all channels driven

vs

135 or less x 7 (avr's 3/2/2 3 amp amp section) all channel. full 170 watts may only apply to 2 channels driven vs 7 driven with the poweramp

[dougc]

I wish more people would do reviews on the 500 &700. Basically telling their stories or reviews on the difference between these two amps vs. their AVR.

[ocezam]

Jan 26, 2013 16:09:42 GMT -5 dougc said:

EQ'ing was my first thought. Starting with my X-overs ended up with original set up. Tried 3 different active equalizers while helping at low volumes. Ended up sounding grainy and distorted at higher volumes.Sounds better w/o any eq. I never realized how muffeled or muddy my mid and high freq's sounded with my yamaha until I hooked up the Carver.Unfortunatly my Carver is experiencing a cold solder joint(I think) on one side that has plauged the TFM line.

I'm always up for an amp upgrade, but I think EQ is maybe your problem, not your solution. Does that old receiver have a button that says "Pure Direct" or anything similar to that? For music that should help a lot.

Does it have YPAO room correction? Have you re-ran it since your speaker upgrade?

If neither of these help, I'd be more inclined to spend say $499 on an XPA-200 to power your mains, than mess with 80WPC on either the UPA-700/500. That'll probably make you happy. If not, when you can afford it, put the 200 on your surounds and buy an XPA-3 for the front.

The UPA-500 will be better than the AVR, but not incredibly so. Just my opinion.

[KeithL]

You have an interesting problem.

First, yes, I think you will hear a big difference between a separate power amp and a Yamaha receiver. (Yamaha's low and middle receivers are notorious for, shall we say tactfully, NOT delivering their rated power with all channels driven.) Besides that, the extra clarity you will gain will probably be especially welcome to you.

Second, if you even think about "Pure Direct", make sure about what that means to your equipment vendor. To some of us it means "no processing" - or at least minimum processing. However, to some vendors, it means "keep doing all the processing, but just shut off the front panel lights". If that's the case then it won't make any difference. Only your manufacturer knows for sure.... but it should be buried somewhere in the docs.

That said, though, part of your problem is YOUR frequency response. Serious hearing loss is almost always frequency dependent, so your hearing is no longer flat (it also may vary oddly with loudness). Unfortunately, this means that using anybody's automatic room EQ is almost certain to actually work AGAINST you. (All automatic EQ is aiming for a flat room response; this is NOT what you need.) It also means that the settings that sound good to you will probably not sound good to your wife, and other people, and vice versa.

I would strongly suggest shutting OFF any automatic room EQ and doing it manually. It would also be helpful to know exactly what your hearing loss is. (It might be worth a visit to an audiologist to be tested. Make sure they're willing to give you the results; you can then "punch in" a correction curve based on those measurements.) It would be hard to do this accurately yourself, because most speakers are not flat, and headphones are VERY un-flat (the audiologist will have special ones that are calibrated for doing this sort of tests.)

[ocezam]

Feb 10, 2013 13:41:25 GMT -5 KeithL said:

You have an interesting problem.
if you even think about "Pure Direct", make sure about what that means to your equipment vendor. To some of us it means "no processing" - or at least minimum processing. However, to some vendors, it means "keep doing all the processing, but just shut off the front panel lights". If that's the case then it won't make any difference. Only your manufacturer knows for sure.

I'm pretty sure this isn't true with Yamaha's AVR's, at least the two I've owned the last five years (RX-V661 and RX-V663). When put in pure direct mode there was an enormous difference in sound quality, for the better. I used the 663 in my two channel setup for about a month before I got a proper two channel analog preamp. The 663 actually sounded pretty good as a preamp.