UPA-700 Review: HomeTheaterReview.com

[LCSeminole]

Reviewed by Andrew Robinson, who also reviewed the UMC-200.

hometheaterreview.com/emotiva-upa-700-seven-channel-amplifier-reviewed/

[stads77]

I felt the same way when I first listened to the upa-500, a great achievement for the consumer. Well done Emotiva!

[vinylfreak]

Just got done reading it.

Very pumped up!
The UPA - 700 matched with the UMC-200 , looks more and more , like my upgrade path from my Onkyo 608.
Just need to save a few more pennies!

[DYohn]

Just read it. Nice review. Now get him and XPR, Dan.

[garbulky]

That's a very good and balanced review. Compared against a similar though more expensive ID amp. Compared against much more expensive units as well and clearly stated pros and cons with tons of praise
Also pointed out the cheap as heck offerings from emo that will do everything he said the UPA-700 "lacks".
" Finding downsides to amplifiers that simply perform as advertised and beyond is a bit like trying to find fault with a Victoria's Secret supermodel - you're just gonna look silly". Well put and I think this is the most balanced subjective review I've read. Interestingly some of his critics actually came close to articulating the sound of my upa-2's.

[knucklehead]

Without troweling out a butt-load of buttery phrases to embellish the English language used to describe the sounds coming from my UPA-500 I think I can agree with the reviewer - it sounds good.

[garbulky]

The broad picture: It means that when a bunch of stuff goes on at the same time the amp presented all the instruments with detail but none of the individual instruments were as well rendered as some other amps he heard. A lot of cheap amps fail at even presenting all the instruments in the proper place let alone rendering it to sound super realistic. At least that's what I took it to mean.

[garbulky]

That's a good point Chuckie. I had no ideas they were so inexpensive. I too noticed he used bookshelves and really wished he had used some nice towers.

[garbulky]

But in a way you could say the same thing when one reviews ANYTHING. Heck a brown out in the area may have contributed to the problem. Or more importantly, his ears may have been stuffed up slightly that day causing the problem. He may not have positioned his speakers correctly. A cofee table muddied up the soundstage making an imperfect amp somehow sound better than a much better one. One could never tell. ;D My ears stuff up regularly (they do!) and sometimes I can't tell that they are. But I do understand that a fair review is important. I get your point about the equipment. He should have done two speakers. One very good reference level product he is intimately familiar with and the other one a standard speaker he feels that the average user would use with it. And most importantly he needs to be very familiar with them. These shouldn't be speakers passing through his review room.

I feel when one reads a subjective review, the point of it is that the writer feels that his audience should trust that he hears what he hears and hopefulyl he knows how to set things up right or at least have a gray line - a sort of suspension of disbelief upto a point. . Otherwise there really is no point in reading a subjective review without measurements - it's really upto that reviewers preference which isn't necessarily what another prefers. DISCLAIMER: I'm just as guilty of doing the same thing like when the reviewer didn't use a bit-perfect method of data transfer to the dac vs the other dac where he did. Also if he thought the 80X5 ACD of a UPA-500 was equal to an 80X5 of an avr rated with only two channels driven - then this would create expectation bias.

I do feel that some professional reviewrs have something to their advantage. They tend to have experienced a lot of very good high end equipment in their own room. So if they dont have obvious ulterior motives, aren't too lazy, and pan the sound by giving specific details (I found his description very close to how I would nitpick my upa-2 which I love and it took me a long time to figure out the "sound") - then I try to give them the benefit of the doubt.
I do tune out when they start mentioning emotiva in a condescending tone or pull crap like comparing an ERC-2 to a PS1 CD player and then breezily declare that another equipment's sound is better without properly describing why. If they talk about "prescence" do tell me a part in a specific song where it did better and describe it. If they talk about brightness, do show me what they found bright about it.

[Deleted]

Have you tried this?





;D ;D ;D

[garbulky]

I have to say that thankfully i haven't! ;D