Post by hendrix23 on Sept 23, 2013 2:37:02 GMT -5
Hi Keith, I'm sorry but I already posted this in another thread, but was really hoping for some valuable insight from you so I reposted here. Completely new to this site, but I'm completely torn as to what to get. Was really hoping for some input from everyone. And sorry for this SUPER long email. haha... Just my head's all tired from all the researching and reading online. So thoughts might be a bit scattered at the moment. lol
I recently bought a pair of ASW genius 400 speakers (rated as 200 watts RMS into 4 ohms, and 250 watts max, which I'm not sure if that's the peak or something else).
www.audiophilia.com/hardware/asw.htm
I also have a set of 5.1 home theatre set. I have both of these in the living room. The ASW speakers are much better speakers than the front towers (some cheap pro-linear towers) of my 5.1 set.
I pretty much split my movie and music listening to around 50/50. However, quality 2-channel stereo music re-production takes a much higher priority to me because one of my main goals is to maximize my ASW 400 speakers to their full potential for music. I also won't be using a sub woofer for 2 channel music listening. The sub will only be used when watching movies in 5.1. (not sure if the emotiva dac/preamps can ignore my sub and send all the sound to the 2 front speakers during stereo mode?)I won't be using this set up for any parties, but only for movie watching or music listening at reasonable and slightly louder than normal listening levels. Granted it's not my mind playing tricks with me, I've noticed I'm a very sensitive listener to audio quality changes. I can seem to tell subtle sound quality changes in reasonable listening levels. So 2 channel audio quality for me is quite important.
I'm using an Audioquest Dragonfly as my DAC from my laptop at the moment. I currently use a 3.5 mm to rca cable to link my dragonfly to my denon receiver for music. Will I still be able to do this if I just get say one of the Emotiva power amps like the XPA-200 or XPA-2? Because I don't see any volume control on the power amps do I need a pre-amp for sure with it? The thing is I don't think I'll be getting a true lineout signal from my dragonfly if I change the volume on the laptop to anything below 100%, which might lead to sound degradation. Was also wondering if there will be an issue with say the voltage output difference of what the dragonfly outputs to the poweramps, which means I should be getting a pre-amp with the set up?
My options currently is to either just use the ASW speakers for only music listening, which means I'll only need to get a 2 channel amp (XPA-200 or XPA-2?) and a pre-amp or processor that is good for stereo music (XDA-2 or XSP-1 with my dragonfly as dac or USP-1 with my dragonfly as dac?). Or I can even get a UMC-200 for this so I can hook up a blu ray player via hdmi to play concert dvd's and blu ray's in 2 channel audio.
Or I can replace my front speakers in my 5.1 set up with the ASW's instead. In this case I'll probably need a 5 channel amp (XPA-5) and I will need to get a new processor for both music and home theatre (UMC-200). My current Denon receiver doesn't have any pre-outs so it'll have to be a full replacement if I go this route.
I think my key concerns is to maximize the sound potential for my new ASW speakers for 2 channel music. But if I can get even to within 90% of this max potential while going with the UMC200 to xpa-5 route then I would consider that too as I'm pretty sure this will upgrade the sound of my home theatre experience by quite a bit?
However, if by going the UMC200 to XPA-5 route I'll be losing a lot of 2 channel music quality then I may rather go the other route and use the ASW's for mainly 2 channel listening and having it seperate from my 5.1 set up. In this case I'm guessing I should either be going the xda-2 or my dragonfly to XSP-1/USP-1 to XPA200 or xpa2 root?
I'm dead set on getting an Emotiva amp and it'll either be the XPA-200, XPA-5, XPA-3, or XPA-2.
On the DAC/processor and pre-amp side I'm more flexible and am open to getting another brand if there's something else that's a better bang for the sound quality. like a better dac out there for the price that already has a pre-amp. I'm also considering an audiolab mdac as well. Does anyone have any experience or a comparison of this dac vs say the xda-2?
I think my key questions are:
-Been reading up and some people suggest matching amps with double the RMS wattage rating of the speakers to get the best results. Like say if my speakers are 200 watts RMS, then the amp would ideally be 400 watts RMS. In general is this true? Because I've heard other different opinions about this as some say just 10% overhead more power for the amp is good enough. So not sure what would be the optimum wattage of the amp to maximize my speaker's sound quality potential.
-As my speakers are rated at 200 watts RMS into 4 ohms. The XPA200 is rated at 240 watts RMS into 4 ohms, but at 1% THD? Would this matchup be good enough to maximize my speakers sound potential under reasonable and slightly louder than normal listening levels? Because I've noticed the extra higher power from the amp really helps with improving the sound quality (clarity, detail, dynamics and other stuff) of some of my speakers and headphones for the same listening volume.
-Would the extra power of say the XPA-3 or XPA-5 of 300 watts into 4 ohms (160 more watts than the XPA200) improve the sound quality over the XPA200 for the same listening volume level? And likewise, would the extra power from the XPA-2 improve the sound quality over the XPA200 or XPA3 or XPA5 in any way?
-Was also wondering, regardless of the extra power, would the 2 channel music quality of the XPA200 or the XPA2 amps be different and better than the XPA3 and XPA5? Since the XPA200 and XPA2 are designed as 2 channel amps, I was just wondering if their internal design and structure would be different than that of the xpa3 and xpa5 and perhaps be more tailored for high quality 2 channel music? Or is the internal design and structure (design philosophy) of the xpa2 exactly the same as the xpa5/xpa3 so that they would sound the same for 2 channel music and the only difference is just in the wattage? I've heard some people say the XPA-2 actually is built or designed different from the other amps for 2 channel music so it sounds much better for that. Just wanted to check.
-With the processors/pre-amps. Would you consider the dac inside the UMC200 and XDA-2 to be better or about the same as my audioquest dragonfly dac?
-Is the xda-2's 2 channel music processing noticably superior to that of the UMC200? or are they quite close?
-would my 2 channel music performance be noticably better if I used my dragonfly to output to the USP-1 or XSP-1 instead of just using the xda-2 or umc200 straight to the amp? I guess this also depends on whether the dacs in those processors are better than my dragonfly?
-Is there any other dac, or dac and pre-amp from other brands that you would say is better than the emotiva ones that are great deals that you can recommend? How would the Audiolab Mdac stack up?
Thanks so much for your time and help. Sorry for the long winded msg.
I recently bought a pair of ASW genius 400 speakers (rated as 200 watts RMS into 4 ohms, and 250 watts max, which I'm not sure if that's the peak or something else).
www.audiophilia.com/hardware/asw.htm
I also have a set of 5.1 home theatre set. I have both of these in the living room. The ASW speakers are much better speakers than the front towers (some cheap pro-linear towers) of my 5.1 set.
I pretty much split my movie and music listening to around 50/50. However, quality 2-channel stereo music re-production takes a much higher priority to me because one of my main goals is to maximize my ASW 400 speakers to their full potential for music. I also won't be using a sub woofer for 2 channel music listening. The sub will only be used when watching movies in 5.1. (not sure if the emotiva dac/preamps can ignore my sub and send all the sound to the 2 front speakers during stereo mode?)I won't be using this set up for any parties, but only for movie watching or music listening at reasonable and slightly louder than normal listening levels. Granted it's not my mind playing tricks with me, I've noticed I'm a very sensitive listener to audio quality changes. I can seem to tell subtle sound quality changes in reasonable listening levels. So 2 channel audio quality for me is quite important.
I'm using an Audioquest Dragonfly as my DAC from my laptop at the moment. I currently use a 3.5 mm to rca cable to link my dragonfly to my denon receiver for music. Will I still be able to do this if I just get say one of the Emotiva power amps like the XPA-200 or XPA-2? Because I don't see any volume control on the power amps do I need a pre-amp for sure with it? The thing is I don't think I'll be getting a true lineout signal from my dragonfly if I change the volume on the laptop to anything below 100%, which might lead to sound degradation. Was also wondering if there will be an issue with say the voltage output difference of what the dragonfly outputs to the poweramps, which means I should be getting a pre-amp with the set up?
My options currently is to either just use the ASW speakers for only music listening, which means I'll only need to get a 2 channel amp (XPA-200 or XPA-2?) and a pre-amp or processor that is good for stereo music (XDA-2 or XSP-1 with my dragonfly as dac or USP-1 with my dragonfly as dac?). Or I can even get a UMC-200 for this so I can hook up a blu ray player via hdmi to play concert dvd's and blu ray's in 2 channel audio.
Or I can replace my front speakers in my 5.1 set up with the ASW's instead. In this case I'll probably need a 5 channel amp (XPA-5) and I will need to get a new processor for both music and home theatre (UMC-200). My current Denon receiver doesn't have any pre-outs so it'll have to be a full replacement if I go this route.
I think my key concerns is to maximize the sound potential for my new ASW speakers for 2 channel music. But if I can get even to within 90% of this max potential while going with the UMC200 to xpa-5 route then I would consider that too as I'm pretty sure this will upgrade the sound of my home theatre experience by quite a bit?
However, if by going the UMC200 to XPA-5 route I'll be losing a lot of 2 channel music quality then I may rather go the other route and use the ASW's for mainly 2 channel listening and having it seperate from my 5.1 set up. In this case I'm guessing I should either be going the xda-2 or my dragonfly to XSP-1/USP-1 to XPA200 or xpa2 root?
I'm dead set on getting an Emotiva amp and it'll either be the XPA-200, XPA-5, XPA-3, or XPA-2.
On the DAC/processor and pre-amp side I'm more flexible and am open to getting another brand if there's something else that's a better bang for the sound quality. like a better dac out there for the price that already has a pre-amp. I'm also considering an audiolab mdac as well. Does anyone have any experience or a comparison of this dac vs say the xda-2?
I think my key questions are:
-Been reading up and some people suggest matching amps with double the RMS wattage rating of the speakers to get the best results. Like say if my speakers are 200 watts RMS, then the amp would ideally be 400 watts RMS. In general is this true? Because I've heard other different opinions about this as some say just 10% overhead more power for the amp is good enough. So not sure what would be the optimum wattage of the amp to maximize my speaker's sound quality potential.
-As my speakers are rated at 200 watts RMS into 4 ohms. The XPA200 is rated at 240 watts RMS into 4 ohms, but at 1% THD? Would this matchup be good enough to maximize my speakers sound potential under reasonable and slightly louder than normal listening levels? Because I've noticed the extra higher power from the amp really helps with improving the sound quality (clarity, detail, dynamics and other stuff) of some of my speakers and headphones for the same listening volume.
-Would the extra power of say the XPA-3 or XPA-5 of 300 watts into 4 ohms (160 more watts than the XPA200) improve the sound quality over the XPA200 for the same listening volume level? And likewise, would the extra power from the XPA-2 improve the sound quality over the XPA200 or XPA3 or XPA5 in any way?
-Was also wondering, regardless of the extra power, would the 2 channel music quality of the XPA200 or the XPA2 amps be different and better than the XPA3 and XPA5? Since the XPA200 and XPA2 are designed as 2 channel amps, I was just wondering if their internal design and structure would be different than that of the xpa3 and xpa5 and perhaps be more tailored for high quality 2 channel music? Or is the internal design and structure (design philosophy) of the xpa2 exactly the same as the xpa5/xpa3 so that they would sound the same for 2 channel music and the only difference is just in the wattage? I've heard some people say the XPA-2 actually is built or designed different from the other amps for 2 channel music so it sounds much better for that. Just wanted to check.
-With the processors/pre-amps. Would you consider the dac inside the UMC200 and XDA-2 to be better or about the same as my audioquest dragonfly dac?
-Is the xda-2's 2 channel music processing noticably superior to that of the UMC200? or are they quite close?
-would my 2 channel music performance be noticably better if I used my dragonfly to output to the USP-1 or XSP-1 instead of just using the xda-2 or umc200 straight to the amp? I guess this also depends on whether the dacs in those processors are better than my dragonfly?
-Is there any other dac, or dac and pre-amp from other brands that you would say is better than the emotiva ones that are great deals that you can recommend? How would the Audiolab Mdac stack up?
Thanks so much for your time and help. Sorry for the long winded msg.
