XPA2G2 Bridged

[Real Maximus]

I bought my first Emotiva and it arrived today. After much deliberating I narrowed down my decision to the XPA 2G2. I wanted mono blocks but could not afford them at this time. I barely had the scratch to make this happen. Rather than selling this amp down the road to upgrade to an XPR2 or XPA1 G2 monos, I have the option to later purchase a second XPA 2G2, and bridge each amp into a mono amp, attaining 1000 watts per channel into 8 ohms. That is the same amount of power as the XPA1G2.

I understand that the XPA 1G2 offers 60 watts in class A mode. That is awesome. So my question is, how many watts of Class A am I getting with my XPA2G2? It is on par or close to the performance of its mono brother when bridged, or should I consider selling and getting monos or XPR2 when I have extras funds?

[dragoonxp20]

So the difference between Class A and Class A/B is that Class A uses 1 device for both halves of a sine wave whereas a Class A/B between 2 devices for the 2 halves of a sine wave. However, class A/B doesn't have a point where both devices are off because the point where each devices transitions bleeds into the operating range of the other device. The end effect is a different level of THD. Class A/B will generate noise during the transition at the half of the sine wave.

emotiva.com/resources/media/xpa2/xpa2_gen2_8ohm.pdf
emotiva.com/resources/media/xpa1/XPA-1gen2_8Ohms_2013-08-09.pdf

On page 7 of these pdfs, you can see the graph of THD vs watts. You'll notice that the THD of the XPA-1 G2 is an order of magnitude lower than the XPA-2 G2 over the whole range of rated power. I'm not sure how accurate these measurements are, but there seems to be a significant difference.

Now the question is whether this THD difference is audible. That, I have no idea. I've read that anything below 1% THD is inaudible, but I'm not sure about the validity of that statement. I just ordered an XPA2 G2 along with an XSP-1 G2 because I wasn't sure I could justify the difference in cost, weight, and space. Also my speaker cables wouldn't be usable and the XPA2 G2 are overkill on power for my speakers anyway.

[ocezam]

Apr 9, 2014 3:25:26 GMT -5 Real Maximus said:

I understand that the XPA 1G2 offers 60 watts in class A mode. That is awesome. So my question is, how many watts of Class A am I getting with my XPA2G2? It is on par or close to the performance of its mono brother when bridged, or should I consider selling and getting monos or XPR2 when I have extras funds?

Assuming you have 6 or 8 ohm speakers, keep your XPA-2 and get another and run them bridged. Class A will not make an audible difference.