XPR-5 any comparisons?

[bolle]

Hi,

I am currently looking to upgrade my Sherwood AM-9080. My new speakers simply need more power than the Sherwood has to offer.

Since I sadly only have limited space in my living room, I would prefer one 5 channel amp. Therefore the XPR-5 looks quite attractive.

Did anyone compare the XPR-5 to amps like an Anthem P5, Audionet Amp VII or a Sherbourn 5/1500A. These are also interesting contenders for me - especially because they have one power supply per channel and not a large shared one.

Oh - my speakers are self developed with a RDC of 3,2 Ohm, dual 9 inch woofers, dual 4 inch midrange (D' Appolito) and a 1,1 inch dome tweeter. All 5 are identical.

Thanks for any advice!

[Deleted]

You *might* want to consider the Red Dragon Audio amps. They are ICE-powered monoblocs, but may be above your price range at $795 ea. Supposed to be *killer* amps, though...

-RW-

[bolle]

I already tested the Hypex UCD400HG - great power and bass control but the high frequency reproduction and overall realism and staging was lacking compared to the sherwood.

The ICE-powered amps I listened to so far were even worse than the Hypex UCD. So I think I am staying analog right now, since the Hypex nCore are too expensive for 5 channels sadly.

Bolle

[reaper60]

My experience in building my own speakers and using emo to power them has been positive. I actually bought a Mini-X A100 for my garage that I use to test out speakers as I move through the build process. While I can't speak for the XPR-5 as I don't own own, the XPA series does a very good job and so long as you don't have a concert hall to fill, you will find that the power output is beyond satisfactory. Another thing to consider is that a nominal impedance of 3.2 Ohms is going to put you in to some very serious power with these amps! If my noggin serves me right, recent tests of 2-channel power on the XPR series amps in to 4 ohms was something in the 750 wpc range!

BTW - if my assumption on your driver choice is correct (9" woofer is a dead give away) I think you should be super pleased with your sound. Of course, you might consider doing an A/B comparison of the amp of choice with your creations and a professional built one as some times crossovers could need a little more tweaking, impedance curves don't line up quite right, room reflections or dispersion are different than planned, etc. If you are like me you home built will not be your last and you want to know you aren't picking an amp that is ONLY good with your current speaker due to it's caveats (mid-range dip, high end roll-off, etc.)

(side note - I have no idea how advanced your skill set is, if your build is based off of plans from somebody else or are complete scratch builds etc. Please don't take my guesses as having any real basis in regards to your personal skill! Just trying to cover all the bases!)

[bolle]

reaper60: Thank you for your post!

These are not my first speakers built and also not the first completely developed from scratch. The speakers I had before were sonically on par with 1000Euro a piece speakers from renowned companies while costing about 250Euro a piece (directly compared and also confirmed by some different people than me with listening experience).

The drivers of my current speakers are: Monacor SPH-225C, Morel EM428, Morel ST1108 (guessed right on the 9 inch? I bet you thought Dayton ). These are supposed to be my "final" speakers, beeing planned for 2 years before starting building. The crossover was developed together with a good friend of mine who also built a few european champions in car-hifi SQ (we both come from there...). The enclosure is professionally built, partly CNC-engineered from 25mm aluminium with passive driver displacement in the z-axis to achieve a flat first wavefront. This was of course measured and tested before with a test enclosure, taking the final filter steepness into account...

I hope it is clear that a lot of thought has gone into these speakers - and they sound very good, better than anything for a few thousand Euro a piece I listended to. I also used my UMC-200s PEQ to manually calibrate the system to my room.

But the speakers can take a lot of power and they are not an easy load because of their impedance. That´s why I am looking for a capable amp - and got interested in the XPR-5 as well as the alternatives listed above, for the reasons stated.

[Porscheguy]

I have heard to P5 and it's quite a nice amp. I have not compared it to an XPR-5 head to head but I would say the performance is similar, although I think the XPR-5 has a warmer sound to it and slightly better bass response. The Anthem is very expensive too - you're paying a $2500 commision to the dealer just for handing it to you.... Which is silly if you buy at MSRP.

[The Mad Norseman]

I'm driving a pair of large dual 10" woofer floor-standers with the Emo XPR-5, and I can say that it does grab a hold of them and shows them who's boss, and controls them tightly like no amp that I've ever had before!

The XPR-5 also has a very nice sound signature to it - VERY neutral as far as I can tell. Great performance.
(But I'm also 'feeding it' via the Marantz AV8801 surround processor, so I can't really say which component is responsible for the wonderful sound, maybe both?).

Unfortunately, I can't comment on your other amps that you've mentioned, only on how the Emo XPR-5 tames my own large speakers...
Good luck in your hunt!