XPA-3's Extra Impact?

[digipix4u]

Greetings, all.

I just purchased and installed an XPA-3 yesterday with my Yamaha RX A820. Following meticulous guidance with both the receiver's and XPA's manuals, I turned everything on. The trigger switch worked flawlessly. The volume was intentionally kept low, as I anticipated an increase here per the XPA's 200 wpc. All wire connections had correct polarity, along with the RCA's appropriately connected. What I noticed seemed to be no change in volume or "punch" at all. Is this normal? Do I need to tweak/adjust something, as this is my first venture into using separates? I want to make sure I bought this unit to add substance to my system, in particular, my new B & W 683's. Any suggestions, comments welcome!

[ocezam]

Mar 17, 2013 7:37:47 GMT -5 digipix4u said:

Greetings, all.

I just purchased and installed an XPA-3 yesterday with my Yamaha RX A820. Following meticulous guidance with both the receiver's and XPA's manuals, I turned everything on. The trigger switch worked flawlessly. The volume was intentionally kept low, as I anticipated an increase here per the XPA's 200 wpc. All wire connections had correct polarity, along with the RCA's appropriately connected. What I noticed seemed to be no change in volume or "punch" at all. Is this normal? Do I need to tweak/adjust something, as this is my first venture into using separates? I want to make sure I bought this unit to add substance to my system, in particular, my new B & W 683's. Any suggestions, comments welcome!

You really shouldn't have any more "volume" with your new XPA-3. The amp has fairly high gain but Audyssey room correction, or in your case YPAO, will adjust for that.

In general, I think you should hear a more punchy dynamic sound. But this will usually only happen on louder portions of the sound track. With the XPA-3 your speakers are being fed a cleaner, stronger signal. There is much less chance of the speaker being sent a clipped, therefore damaging, signal.

In the end, only you can decide if the XPA-3 is what you wanted it to be.

[Dan Laufman]

What you will hear is an obvious increase in headroom and the lack of congestion and improved clarity as you push the system harder.

It will not "jump out" at you at lower levels if the system is properly calibrated.

However, I promise you that the increased headroom and authority of this amplifier will become obvious to you the more you listen to it.

Try some of your more demanding source material and I believe you will come to appreciate the tremendous increase in control and clarity and impact available with the XPA-3.

When your receiver's amplifiers are crapping out, the XPA-'s are just getting started!

Enjoy,
Big Dan

[mgbpuff]

Here is another person's experience with the same equipment. www.avsforum.com/t/1422991/review-of-yamaha-rx-a820-and-emotiva-xpa-3

If the Yamaha was not clipping, then there should be little improvement. I doubt you would be able to hear the THD+N spec differences between the two. But the XPA3 has significantly more headroom available and will eliminate any clipping distortions that may occur with the lesser powered Yamaha.

[cavchameleon]

I agree with the above posts. If your system is calibrated and you are listening at low to medium volumes, you will not hear much of a difference. But, at higher volumes near or at reference level, it will become more apparent.

I 'm using fairly inefficient speakers, 86db, and adding the XPA-3 made a big difference at higher volumes in my room.

[garbulky]

To make sure that your reciever is set up well. Have you turned off any dynamic range limiters? They can be called things like night time mode, quiet mode/loud environment mode, or dynamic range low/auto. Make sure to turn them off as these affect sound quality. Also post a pic of your room if you would like to which would help us advice you on speaker placement/room mods which also makes big differences.

[Deleted]

You will hear more volume as you increase the volume level. Don't expect one amp to play louder than the other based on the output number on the front of the AVR.

The punch you might hear is based on the dynamic range of the source. The less compression in the original sound source the better. Be sure you are not listening to MP3 sources or have your AVR compression features turned on. To hear the punch be sure you are listening to a well recorded source. A great example is the Eagles Hell Freezes Over version of Hotel California, DVD, DTS. There are of course tons of others.

Now for the real difference. The Emo XPA-3 has tons of real power that the Yamaha RX-A820 can't begin to equal. You will realize the difference when you turn up your music or movies.

The A820 specs 100 watts per channel (with two channels driven). I couldn't find a test on it but did on the A1020. It is spec'd at 110 watts. Those of course are into 8 ohms, 2 channels. None of the these Yamaha AVR's are rated into 4 ohms. The A1020 tested with 5 channels driven at 63.0 watts. That is comparable to 58 watts with 5 channels driven in the A820. The XPA-3 is tested at over 210 watts with all 3 channels driven (which is the same as the XPA-5 with 5 channels). So we have 58 watts versus 210 watts. That is a huge difference in power. Also the XPA-3 is rated into 4 ohms, 300 watts while the A820 is not. This is a big factor if you have 4 ohms speakers in the future. Actually the B&W 683 tested out at a nominal 6 ohms (not 8 ohms), so the XPA-3 is pumping out up to slightly over 250 watts RMS per channel into the LCR speakers. You might not hear the difference at lower levels but you will when you have louder dynamic sources playing. Note that the A820 weighs 24 lbs while the XPA-3 weighs 57 lbs. The B&W 683's also tested out at 86dB's sensitivity and not 90dB's as specified by B&W, huge difference! In other words the 683's takes more than the twice the power (4dB increase in sound level) you would presume from the 90dB spec. (Tested by HT Mag)

You'll be very glad you upgraded to a real power amp like the XPA-3. ;D