Post by tesfaye on Feb 27, 2013 13:34:59 GMT -5
My Arcam Alpha 8p has served me well for over a decade, but it has been long overdue for an upgrade. The little guy is only rated at 50W into 8ohm and a not so trustworthy 90 or 100 into 4ohm with one channel driven using 1khz or something not so comforting like that. I believe they advertise 12 or 14amps of peak current delivery but no mention of duration. Blah blah blah, it sounded really good, up until a point. I have really enjoyed listening to music on this system up until now and all I really wanted was more headroom.
The Arcam was my first power amp, everything before it were receivers of varying quality (Pioneer Elite, Onkyo, Proton, Vintage McIntosh), and the Arcam performed like a champ. That was until I purchased my MMGs and that's when things got interesting. I now had a speaker that did everything well except bass slam. Okay, lets work on that with a sub, so I picked up a nice Polk PSW 350 which worked okay but integration with the MMGs was a problem as I changed residences (room dimensions, available space, etc). I was still happy, but I changed receivers and picked up a Denon 988 to take advantage of the Audessey processing which helped big time. After calibration, everything fell into place and I was hearing more from my music than I ever had before. But there was still that headroom issue, I just couldn't turn it up as loud as I'd like for some songs because the Arcam would run out of steam at times. Thankfully, the Arcam is gentle about it but it doesn't go unnoticed.
Yeah yeah, you were happy with your old kit, you needed more headroom (duh!), you have the XPA-2 now, how does it sound? Well, I'll tell you. AMAZING! Out of the box for only 10 minutes, and powered on for no more than 2 minutes I was already playing music through it, and from the first few notes on a Lost In the Trees track I was stunned. What the hell did I just install in my rack? This thing is telling me things about my music that I just was not aware of until this point. The XPA-2 simply does EVERYTHING better than my old Arcam. But the best part about it is that I can play my system at any volume level and maintain a coherent and detailed presentation.
This amp, in my system, in my home sounds incredible. Now I have effortless dynamics, amazing detail, and the best part is that my wife simply loves the new setup at max volume, with no complaints! My wife does not look for things in the music, she isn't going to talk about detail, soundstage, or otherwise geek out over it, but she does notice differences in sound quality. I had her pick out songs from my rather large collection and I played them back for her. That was fun. I just sat and watched her dance around my man cave, and when seated she couldnt stop moving. All of a sudden she stops for a minute, turns to me and says "Honey, the room sounds so much bigger!". That was an awesome moment for me, since I was thinking the exact same thing!
I decided to do some testing with the Denon in Pure Direct mode, and what I heard was very unexpected. My Magnepan MMGs play deeper and with more authority than they ever have before. The XPA-2 has so much control over these speakers, it's just insane.
I listened to jazz, classical, hip-hop, rock (all types), and nothing tripped this system up, it just played music at whatever volume I wished, well that is until the MMGs just stop getting any louder. Tracks that I didn't really care for (usually due to the recording quality) came to life and had me tapping my toes! And yes, some tears were shed while listening to this amp for the first time.
Of course I tried movies with this amp, but not for very long as I'm more about my music than movies. Of course I got the same results with movies as I did with music: jaw to the floor, with tons of Holy Shits and WTFs being tossed around as I heard more detail, wider dynamics, along with the sheer power of it all.
At 2am Tuesday morning I wrapped up my listening session and as I walked up the steps from my man cave, I could have sworn I heard the XPA-2 ask the MMGs "Who's your daddy?". I was probably just tired at that point as I had just spent about 5 or 6 hours listening to music at very loud volume levels, but without even the slightest hint of listener fatigue. Awesome. The XPA-2 is a definite keeper.
Now that I have the power, I can think about stepping up to a pair of 1.7's which is about as large as I want to go in my current space. Up until now, I haven't really spent a lot of money on upgrades, but each one has been significant in some aspect which I'm pretty happy about. This ranks as as one of the most significant upgrades since purchasing my MMGs. I am one happy customer! ;D
Components:
Magnepan MMG, MMG-W
Polk PSW-350 (awesome little 10" sub)
Denon AVR 988
Emotiva XPA-2 (front)
Arcam Alpah 8p (rear)
HTPC over HDMI using 24bit/192KHz
ButtKicker bolted to the couch but not engaged during XPA-2 testing(wireless model, but it's wired)
Straight Wire between XPA-2 and Denon (only because I still have it after 15 years)
Ratshack and monoprice wiring elsewhere
The Arcam was my first power amp, everything before it were receivers of varying quality (Pioneer Elite, Onkyo, Proton, Vintage McIntosh), and the Arcam performed like a champ. That was until I purchased my MMGs and that's when things got interesting. I now had a speaker that did everything well except bass slam. Okay, lets work on that with a sub, so I picked up a nice Polk PSW 350 which worked okay but integration with the MMGs was a problem as I changed residences (room dimensions, available space, etc). I was still happy, but I changed receivers and picked up a Denon 988 to take advantage of the Audessey processing which helped big time. After calibration, everything fell into place and I was hearing more from my music than I ever had before. But there was still that headroom issue, I just couldn't turn it up as loud as I'd like for some songs because the Arcam would run out of steam at times. Thankfully, the Arcam is gentle about it but it doesn't go unnoticed.
Yeah yeah, you were happy with your old kit, you needed more headroom (duh!), you have the XPA-2 now, how does it sound? Well, I'll tell you. AMAZING! Out of the box for only 10 minutes, and powered on for no more than 2 minutes I was already playing music through it, and from the first few notes on a Lost In the Trees track I was stunned. What the hell did I just install in my rack? This thing is telling me things about my music that I just was not aware of until this point. The XPA-2 simply does EVERYTHING better than my old Arcam. But the best part about it is that I can play my system at any volume level and maintain a coherent and detailed presentation.
This amp, in my system, in my home sounds incredible. Now I have effortless dynamics, amazing detail, and the best part is that my wife simply loves the new setup at max volume, with no complaints! My wife does not look for things in the music, she isn't going to talk about detail, soundstage, or otherwise geek out over it, but she does notice differences in sound quality. I had her pick out songs from my rather large collection and I played them back for her. That was fun. I just sat and watched her dance around my man cave, and when seated she couldnt stop moving. All of a sudden she stops for a minute, turns to me and says "Honey, the room sounds so much bigger!". That was an awesome moment for me, since I was thinking the exact same thing!
I decided to do some testing with the Denon in Pure Direct mode, and what I heard was very unexpected. My Magnepan MMGs play deeper and with more authority than they ever have before. The XPA-2 has so much control over these speakers, it's just insane.
I listened to jazz, classical, hip-hop, rock (all types), and nothing tripped this system up, it just played music at whatever volume I wished, well that is until the MMGs just stop getting any louder. Tracks that I didn't really care for (usually due to the recording quality) came to life and had me tapping my toes! And yes, some tears were shed while listening to this amp for the first time.
Of course I tried movies with this amp, but not for very long as I'm more about my music than movies. Of course I got the same results with movies as I did with music: jaw to the floor, with tons of Holy Shits and WTFs being tossed around as I heard more detail, wider dynamics, along with the sheer power of it all.
At 2am Tuesday morning I wrapped up my listening session and as I walked up the steps from my man cave, I could have sworn I heard the XPA-2 ask the MMGs "Who's your daddy?". I was probably just tired at that point as I had just spent about 5 or 6 hours listening to music at very loud volume levels, but without even the slightest hint of listener fatigue. Awesome. The XPA-2 is a definite keeper.
Now that I have the power, I can think about stepping up to a pair of 1.7's which is about as large as I want to go in my current space. Up until now, I haven't really spent a lot of money on upgrades, but each one has been significant in some aspect which I'm pretty happy about. This ranks as as one of the most significant upgrades since purchasing my MMGs. I am one happy customer! ;D
Components:
Magnepan MMG, MMG-W
Polk PSW-350 (awesome little 10" sub)
Denon AVR 988
Emotiva XPA-2 (front)
Arcam Alpah 8p (rear)
HTPC over HDMI using 24bit/192KHz
ButtKicker bolted to the couch but not engaged during XPA-2 testing(wireless model, but it's wired)
Straight Wire between XPA-2 and Denon (only because I still have it after 15 years)
Ratshack and monoprice wiring elsewhere
