XPA-100 power trips on increased volume.

[vishal]

Folks,
I got an XPA-100 to drive my Magnepan CC-5 center channel.
At low listening volumes all is good.
If I go up to average listening volumes the amp trips and circuit goes into protection mode.
Turning the amp off/on fixes it but repeats right away. If I drop the volume the problem goes away.

All cables checked for connection snugness and polarity. Prepro to amp is monoprice XLR cable and amp to speaker is Emotiva X-Series speaker cable. Both work fine on other amp/speakers.

Thoughts, suggestions, ideas?

[novisnick]

Nov 30, 2013 15:22:54 GMT -5 vishal said:

Folks,
I got an XPA-100 to drive my Magnepan CC-5 center channel.
At low listening volumes all is good.
If I go up to average listening volumes the amp trips and circuit goes into protection mode.
Turning the amp off/on fixes it but repeats right away. If I drop the volume the problem goes away.

All cables checked for connection snugness and polarity. Prepro to amp is monoprice XLR cable and amp to speaker is Emotiva X-Series speaker cable. Both work fine on other amp/speakers.

Thoughts, suggestions, ideas?

Sounds like someone is calling tech support Monday morning.

Nick

[garbulky]

I would call tech support. Are you by any chance using a surge suppressor or a power conditioner of any sort?
The amp will go into protection mode if the impedance drops too low or there is really bad voltage sag. If your maggies do ths, this will cause protection mode. Or if there is some sort of arc in your speaker, it may do this too.

[jmasterj]

The stated impedance for the Magnapan CC-5 center channel speaker is 3 Ohms. The minimum recommended load impedance for the XPA-100 mono block amp is 4 Ohms. It's possible that the CC-5's speaker impedance even drops below the 3 Ohms load during normal use. This seems to be presenting a problem to the amp when it's pushed. Looks like you're going to need a power amp that's stable down to 2 Ohms.

I'll be watching to see what assistance if any, you might get from tech support. Until then I'd suggest you keep the volume level down. Did you have the CC-5 connected to the Yamaha HTR-5250 before you got the XPA-100? Where you having problems with this before you got the XPA-100?

My friend "snacker" who is here on the forum has a XPA-3 that he uses with his Maggie MG12QR's and a Maggie MMGC center channel speaker with no problem. The Maggie MMGC is rated at 5 Ohms impedance though. Maybe you can trade for one of those.

[audiobill]

First, what is your "moderate" listening level?

[vishal]

Thanks all for your input.

jmasterj - Technically, you are right about the CC5 being rated at 3 ohm. I was aware of that before I purchased the CC5 or the XPA-100. But there are a lot of people driving their CC5's with Emotiva XPA amps successfully, none of which, AFAIK, are explicitly rated below 4 ohm. The XPA-100 mono-block is a fairly powerful amp and easily beats the specs any of its multichannel XPA brethren driving a single channel (except maybe a Gen 2 XPA-2).

garbulky - I believe you may have a point. I am using an APC H-15 Power Conditioner. There are definitely power sags in my area. I can tell by the clicking I hear in the APC. However the sags have not previously caused the XPA-100 to trip. Also the XPA-1s have never tripped. But they are driving the 1.7s which present a 4 ohm load.

I do want to report one new piece of data - since posting, I have NOT been able to consistently reproduce the problem by just increasing the volume even to uncomfortably high levels. Also noteworthy is that I have been using this setup successfully for a few weeks and the problem only started today after I disassembled and reassembled my system inside my new Salamander stand.

I am wondering if the problem started because during re-assembly I plugged the XPA-100 into a "Video Filter" outlet of the APC. I have now plugged it into an "Analog Filter" outlet. I am not sure if that's the reason but I have not seen the tripping since then despite visibly low voltage today.

I am guessing there are multiple things going on here including voltage sags, 3 ohm load and APC conditioner. Maybe even a cable that is beginning to die and gave early warning. Looks like I will have to watch for further repros and gather more data. Until I have the root cause determined I am not sure if it makes sense to call Emotiva.

Will keep y'all posted.

[young1]

I was selling my Klipsch RF 7iis yesterday buddy who was buying them wanted to hear what they can do I had the volume almost at full 4 o'clock on my USP-1 driving my XPA-100s, both with smiles on our faces of course, I walked over to them still kool as a cucumber they didn't even flinch sound was "LIVE" I know for a fact the 8 ohm rated Klipsch speakers readily dip to 4ohm and/or less. I wouldn't think that ohms would be an issue for those amps no, but cha never know.

Having said that I have a short question . Cornwalls are rated at 100wpc I was worried the Xpa-100s would be to much power being 250wpc@ 8ohms,
the Cornwalls seemed to eat up the power I was throwing at it OR?? was it just feeding back to the amps ?

Thanks

[garbulky]

Dec 1, 2013 12:12:04 GMT -5 young1 said:

I was selling my Klipsch RF 7iis yesterday buddy who was buying them wanted to hear what they can do I had the volume almost at full 4 o'clock on my USP-1 driving my XPA-100s, both with smiles on our faces of course, I walked over to them still kool as a cucumber they didn't even flinch sound was "LIVE" I know for a fact the 8 ohm rated Klipsch speakers readily dip to 4ohm and/or less. I wouldn't think that ohms would be an issue for those amps no, but cha never know.

Having said that I have a short question . Cornwalls are rated at 100wpc I was worried the Xpa-100s would be to much power being 250wpc@ 8ohms,
the Cornwalls seemed to eat up the power I was throwing at it OR?? was it just feeding back to the amps ?

Thanks

The cornwalls can take power. But of course prolonged high power can be dangerous. I can only imagine 4 o clock on the USP-1 is pretty insane imo. I could barely get the USP-1 to half volume. You may want to back off there....

[audiobill]

Those are 98.5 db efficient.

Are you sure you're not damaging your hearing as well as the components?

Really......

[young1]

It was JJ Cale recorded from a record onto a CD all analog extremely good recording, most newer Cds are so over amped on output they can't be played over 9 o'clock

[chopin]

I don't know if I am at the right place to ask this question or not...
My brother bought the xpa-100 monoblock amp last week, so the week end we
made a listening session and the sound is very dynamic, precise and as expected the separation
is phenomenal mainly due to the monoblock amp, but what surprised me is the sound was
also very cold, clinical and not musical at all.
Is it related to the fact that the break in period is at the beginning or this is the normal
sound caracteris of emotiva amp???

Thanks for any help.

[vishal]

Reporting back on the issue:

The issue has not recurred. It seems like the root cause was the excessive dip in the voltage. Voltage has been fine since then.
My theory is - increasing the volume, while voltage was low, resulted in the XPA-100 drawing higher current and getting starved which resulted in protection kicking in and shutting off the amp. My first thought was - why did the XPA-1s not trip as well. Obviously the XPA-1s either received more current or needed less current. I came up with these points for an explanation ...

1. A 3 ohm load from Maggie CC-5 Vs 4 ohm load from Maggie 1.7s meant the current draw on XPA-100 was higher than that on XPA-1s.

2. We were watching TV and listening mode was 5.1 which meant most of the load was on Center channel fed by the XPA-100. So the XPA-1s (feeding the front L/R) were probably loafing and using very little current.
3. The 2 XPA-1s are plugged into the 2 high current outlets of the APC H-15 conditioner. Not so the XPA-100 or the Yamaha Receiver which utilize normal outlets. So possibly the XPA-1s were getting more boost (correction) from H-15 when the voltage dipped (pure guess on my part) than the XPA-100. But if this is true I will have to invest in a second APC H-15 for my XPA-100 and Yamaha.

Are there any APC H-15 users out there that can confirm/deny #3 above? Do all 12 outlets get equal boost on voltage sags?
-Vishal

[hemster]

Vishal, I have the APC H-15 and have my PA7-350 amp plugged into the high current outlet. I also have used up all the other outlets! My understanding is that all outlets receive voltage boost to keep the output voltage within the limits you set. However it is not unusual to have a surge current load requirement or even a very low dip in voltage. Either condition could well put the amp into protection mode.

Depending on your power quality the input voltage may well be >15-20% lower or higher on occasion! I've seen ranges of 95V to 125V but it's nice to know that the H15 is keeping the output voltage fairly well constant (depending on my preferred narrow setting).

You can try adjusting your setting to be more narrow on the range of output voltage. However, as long as it was a one-off, I wouldn't worry and just enjoy the amps.

[garbulky]

Dec 2, 2013 20:32:29 GMT -5 chopin said:

I don't know if I am at the right place to ask this question or not...
My brother bought the xpa-100 monoblock amp last week, so the week end we
made a listening session and the sound is very dynamic, precise and as expected the separation
is phenomenal mainly due to the monoblock amp, but what surprised me is the sound was
also very cold, clinical and not musical at all.
Is it related to the fact that the break in period is at the beginning or this is the normal
sound caracteris of emotiva amp???

Thanks for any help.

Hi chopin it would probably be best to start a new thread in the amplifier section.
But anyway, we would need more information. What are your speakers and source? I've found Emotiva amps to be quite musical. It could possibly be your source or your speaker placement and the way your room is setup.
Take a photo of your room while trying also to show your couch and we can give you some tips if you are interested.
For source: I have found Emotiva amps can show the differences in quality of sources. So what may not have been audible before your emo amps may become audible now.

Also it could be your listening preferences. You simply may not like the sound of the amps.
As for "break in" period. You will get various opinions on this, the majority will feel that the amps are ready pretty much the moment they are turned on. I have found in my system that the amps sound better after being left turned on for about a day or two. I call it "warm up". And I have no logical reason for it. It is a subtle difference. So I leave the amps turned on as they consume very little power when nothing is playing. You can try this to see if it makes a difference.

[garbulky]

Dec 3, 2013 0:17:15 GMT -5 vishal said:

Reporting back on the issue:

The issue has not recurred. It seems like the root cause was the excessive dip in the voltage. Voltage has been fine since then.
My theory is - increasing the volume, while voltage was low, resulted in the XPA-100 drawing higher current and getting starved which resulted in protection kicking in and shutting off the amp. My first thought was - why did the XPA-1s not trip as well. Obviously the XPA-1s either received more current or needed less current. I came up with these points for an explanation ...

1. A 3 ohm load from Maggie CC-5 Vs 4 ohm load from Maggie 1.7s meant the current draw on XPA-100 was higher than that on XPA-1s.

2. We were watching TV and listening mode was 5.1 which meant most of the load was on Center channel fed by the XPA-100. So the XPA-1s (feeding the front L/R) were probably loafing and using very little current.
3. The 2 XPA-1s are plugged into the 2 high current outlets of the APC H-15 conditioner. Not so the XPA-100 or the Yamaha Receiver which utilize normal outlets. So possibly the XPA-1s were getting more boost (correction) from H-15 when the voltage dipped (pure guess on my part) than the XPA-100. But if this is true I will have to invest in a second APC H-15 for my XPA-100 and Yamaha.

Are there any APC H-15 users out there that can confirm/deny #3 above? Do all 12 outlets get equal boost on voltage sags?
-Vishal

If you have audible power problems in your area or notice an improvement with the power conditioner I would by all means use it. However if it was me, and I do not have audible power problems, I would not be using power conditioners. Emotiva recommends plugging the amplifiers directly to the wall. The amps have their own line conditioners built into them which help protect them. I don't think the fix for your issue is to buy more power conditioners (unless there are significant problems in your area).

[jmasterj]

garbulky posted this,

"If you have audible power problems in your area or notice an improvement with the power conditioner I would by all means use it. However if it was me, and I do not have audible power problems, I would not be using power conditioners. Emotiva recommends plugging the amplifiers directly to the wall. The amps have their own line conditioners built into them which help protect them. I don't think the fix for your issue is to buy more power conditioners (unless there are significant problems in your area)."

I wasn't aware "the amps have their own line conditioners built into them which help protect them" Where did you get this information from? No where in my owners manual does it state that the amp has a line conditioner built into the unit.

[jmasterj]

garbulky,

I wasn't aware that "The amps have their own line conditioners built into them which help protect them". Are you talking about the XPA-100?

Where did you get this information from? My owners manual makes no mention of this.

[garbulky]

Dec 3, 2013 9:07:35 GMT -5 jmasterj said:

garbulky,

I wasn't aware that "The amps have their own line conditioners built into them which help protect them". Are you talking about the XPA-100?

Where did you get this information from? My owners manual makes no mention of this.

Maybe a more accurate term is power protection? They've mentioned it a few times on the forum. Sorry I don't have that info with me. But it applies to all emotiva amps.

[jmasterj]

The products page states in XPA-100 Features

That the XPA-100 has "totally transparent protection circuitry-protects you from all common fault conditions." That is not a line conditioner. It is a protection circuit.

A line conditioners purpose is to "Improve the quality of the power that is delivered to electrical equipment". The term most often refers to a device that acts in one or more ways to deliver a voltage of proper level and characteristics to enable load equipment to function properly.

To say that the XPA-100 amps have a line conditioner built into them is incorrect, and misleading.

[vishal]

hemster - I am using the narrow setting (+/- 5%). Every once in a while I can see the "boost" light go on and the display shows that the "in" voltage is lower than the "out". So the H-15 is definitely doing its job. You can actually hear switches clicking inside the H-15 as line voltage fluctuates (which you can "see" as the light bulbs in the house dim their luminescence).

jmasterj - You are right that the Emo Amps have power protection circuit and not power conditioning. At the same time I am sure garbulky was not trying to mislead anyone, just used wrong terminology ;-)

-Vishal