Bought Fusion 8100 almost sent it back, but ........
Jul 21, 2014 19:29:25 GMT -5
pdaddy and frenchyfranky like this
Post by kauai82 on Jul 21, 2014 19:29:25 GMT -5
didn't. I had been looking for a Home Theater receiver for about three months. I had narrowed the search to a Marantz NR1504 5.1 receiver with front speaker pre outs and a Emotiva UPA-200 amp to power the front speakers. I had also a Pioneer VSX-1124 or Pioneer Elite VSX-80 that had 2.0 HDMI and had a supposed killer dac chip set. Also I had a Marantz SR5008, but at $900 dollars new it was out of my price range. I then found the Marantz SR5008 for $549 refurbished on the net. It looked like a good deal and I almost pulled the trigger, but was leery of buying refurbished.
The Fusion 8100 was not much of a consideration at the start of my search. I like to stream FLAC and ALAC files from my upstairs computer in the music room down to the family room home theater set up. I knew that the Fusion did not stream and I thought that $700 dollars it was a little overpriced. I recently up graded my speakers in the family room set up from Polk Monitor 60 II tower floor speakers to a Do It Your Self (DIY) speaker kit called the Tango from DIY Soundgroup on the net. The Polk's did not sound that great in the family room. It is tiled and has large open space to the kitchen and was suffering from bad case of floor bounce and echoes at high levels of volume. The Tangos are monitors that are 14 inches high, 13 inches deep and 8.5 high and weight 27 pounds each. They are on 24 inch steel speaker stands and that got rid of the bad floor bounce. They have a 7 inch mid/woofer driver and a one inch aluminum dome tweeter. I was ecstatic at the sound of the Tango's. The only problem was that the Tangos went down to 38hz and the bass was lacking. Fixed that by getting a Hsu 10 inch sub woofer at a great open box price. Their warehouse is only 11 miles from my house so no shipping ! Bass was now fixed.
The only problem is that the new Tango's are not that sensitive and they really taxed my Denon AVR-E300 entry level receiver. The Denon was rated at 75 watts per channel and could stream files, had airplay and I could hook up my iPod Classic and for $200 dollars on sale was a great buy. I was happy with the SQ of the Denon, but movies and stereo at loud levels (which I like to listen at ) was more than the Denon could handle.
As explained in another post that you can read on this forum about me buying the Pioneer VSX-80 and returning it. I was not impressed with the sound quality of the unit. In hindsight I now understand that I could have done more to equalize the unit and get it to sound better than it did out of the box and after running the equalization system that Pioneer has. Yet, I hated the GUI (on screen instruction / setup menu ) and for $700 dollars I was not going to have a unit that I did not like something as important as the graphic interface. So the unit went back a couple of days after I bought it. Best Buy was very nice about me returning it. Another thing I learned from the Pioneer was that I very limited space in my new entertainment furniture set up. The Pioneer was taller than the old Denon and I had to put the center speaker right on top of the Pioneer and block most of the heat vents on top of the unit. Not good.
Took a look at the height of the Marantz SR5008 and discovered that it would not fit in my entertainment setup. So now I am down to the Marantz NR1504 and UPA-200 amp. Took another look at the Fusion and realized that my new Sony BDP-5100 blu ray player at $88 dollars close out would stream my computer files. The Fusion 8100 was looking better and better. Combine that with my joining the e-member club and with the 20% discount that Emotiva was running for the month of July and the Fusion was going to run my $560 ! I could not resist and ordered the Fusion 8100 and waited the five days for it to show up by UPS.
Unpacked it an was as always impressed by the build quality. Waited to the wife to leave to work (she does not have to know that I bought a new HT receiver ) and set up the unit and was very happy with the back lay out of the unit. Everything was solid and there was a ton of inputs both analog and digital. Read the manual briefly and got the switches set up on the back correctly and ran the Fusion Advance Room Correction System (ARCS).
Now unlike most of you I only view movies about 15% of the time and listen to 2.1 stereo for 85% of the time. So I am going to judge the Fusion 8100 by the sound of the unit in stereo 2.1 sound. Boy was I unimpressed with the SQ of the unit in stereo. Almost sounded as bad as the Pioneer. The wife came home from work so I could not fiddle around with the unit at night. I was surprised that the Fusion when I ran the ARCS said that my right front speaker was out of phase. I reversed the speaker terminals when I ran the first calibration. Next day I spent a lot of time looking over the 56 page manual. Saw that the manual stated that the ARCS system sometimes says that the speaker is out of phase when it was not. So I ran the ARCS again and did not change the phase of the right front speaker. Still disapioneted in the SQ. Decided to view a movie. My test movie is the final blu-ray directors cut of Blade Runner. Put it in and was blown away with the quality of the sound quality of the 5.1 dolby dital output. Much better than I had ever heard from my system before. Picture quality was vastly improved over the Denon and the bass was tight and present with out being boomy. Speaker definition of the center channel (Boston Acoustics VR10) and the small surounds (Dayton BR652) was the best I had ever heard. As you can see I have a very modest HT system. I have a Insigia 55 inch TV. I was watching and listening to a very modest system that was playing way out of its price range.
Now I have figured out that it must be operater error on why the unit sounds so bad in 2.1 stereo. One more time through the insturction manual and I decided to look at the configuration that the ARCS came up with in its test. There is the problem ! Front speakers were set to large and the crossover was wrong (at least in my view.) A few quick clicks of the remote and I am ready for my third listen set up in 2.1 stereo. Bingo much better. A few more adjustments in crossovers and equalization and I am sitting here in my family room with a smile on my face a glass of wine and writing this post. The Fusion 8100 is much more than I expected in SQ when I bought it. It is very,very good in 2.1 stereo and killer in 5.1 home theater setup.
The lession is if you buy the Fusion 8100 go ahead and run the ARCS first and see how your system sounds. If you are not happy with the SQ don't give up. You have 30 days to send the unit back. Read the manual more than once and play with all the different set ups that you have and you will be able to dial in the SQ to your liking. The unit has plenty of power for most of the population. The 65 watts a channel are plenty for me in the 5.1 or 7.1 mode and the 110 watts a channel in 2.1 stereo is plenty for my Tango's.
As usual Emotiva delievers on its claim for it products. The Fusion 8100 just needs some time for the buyer to get the full potenial out of the unit. I highly recomend it for both stereo and multichannel listening and watching.
The Fusion 8100 was not much of a consideration at the start of my search. I like to stream FLAC and ALAC files from my upstairs computer in the music room down to the family room home theater set up. I knew that the Fusion did not stream and I thought that $700 dollars it was a little overpriced. I recently up graded my speakers in the family room set up from Polk Monitor 60 II tower floor speakers to a Do It Your Self (DIY) speaker kit called the Tango from DIY Soundgroup on the net. The Polk's did not sound that great in the family room. It is tiled and has large open space to the kitchen and was suffering from bad case of floor bounce and echoes at high levels of volume. The Tangos are monitors that are 14 inches high, 13 inches deep and 8.5 high and weight 27 pounds each. They are on 24 inch steel speaker stands and that got rid of the bad floor bounce. They have a 7 inch mid/woofer driver and a one inch aluminum dome tweeter. I was ecstatic at the sound of the Tango's. The only problem was that the Tangos went down to 38hz and the bass was lacking. Fixed that by getting a Hsu 10 inch sub woofer at a great open box price. Their warehouse is only 11 miles from my house so no shipping ! Bass was now fixed.
The only problem is that the new Tango's are not that sensitive and they really taxed my Denon AVR-E300 entry level receiver. The Denon was rated at 75 watts per channel and could stream files, had airplay and I could hook up my iPod Classic and for $200 dollars on sale was a great buy. I was happy with the SQ of the Denon, but movies and stereo at loud levels (which I like to listen at ) was more than the Denon could handle.
As explained in another post that you can read on this forum about me buying the Pioneer VSX-80 and returning it. I was not impressed with the sound quality of the unit. In hindsight I now understand that I could have done more to equalize the unit and get it to sound better than it did out of the box and after running the equalization system that Pioneer has. Yet, I hated the GUI (on screen instruction / setup menu ) and for $700 dollars I was not going to have a unit that I did not like something as important as the graphic interface. So the unit went back a couple of days after I bought it. Best Buy was very nice about me returning it. Another thing I learned from the Pioneer was that I very limited space in my new entertainment furniture set up. The Pioneer was taller than the old Denon and I had to put the center speaker right on top of the Pioneer and block most of the heat vents on top of the unit. Not good.
Took a look at the height of the Marantz SR5008 and discovered that it would not fit in my entertainment setup. So now I am down to the Marantz NR1504 and UPA-200 amp. Took another look at the Fusion and realized that my new Sony BDP-5100 blu ray player at $88 dollars close out would stream my computer files. The Fusion 8100 was looking better and better. Combine that with my joining the e-member club and with the 20% discount that Emotiva was running for the month of July and the Fusion was going to run my $560 ! I could not resist and ordered the Fusion 8100 and waited the five days for it to show up by UPS.
Unpacked it an was as always impressed by the build quality. Waited to the wife to leave to work (she does not have to know that I bought a new HT receiver ) and set up the unit and was very happy with the back lay out of the unit. Everything was solid and there was a ton of inputs both analog and digital. Read the manual briefly and got the switches set up on the back correctly and ran the Fusion Advance Room Correction System (ARCS).
Now unlike most of you I only view movies about 15% of the time and listen to 2.1 stereo for 85% of the time. So I am going to judge the Fusion 8100 by the sound of the unit in stereo 2.1 sound. Boy was I unimpressed with the SQ of the unit in stereo. Almost sounded as bad as the Pioneer. The wife came home from work so I could not fiddle around with the unit at night. I was surprised that the Fusion when I ran the ARCS said that my right front speaker was out of phase. I reversed the speaker terminals when I ran the first calibration. Next day I spent a lot of time looking over the 56 page manual. Saw that the manual stated that the ARCS system sometimes says that the speaker is out of phase when it was not. So I ran the ARCS again and did not change the phase of the right front speaker. Still disapioneted in the SQ. Decided to view a movie. My test movie is the final blu-ray directors cut of Blade Runner. Put it in and was blown away with the quality of the sound quality of the 5.1 dolby dital output. Much better than I had ever heard from my system before. Picture quality was vastly improved over the Denon and the bass was tight and present with out being boomy. Speaker definition of the center channel (Boston Acoustics VR10) and the small surounds (Dayton BR652) was the best I had ever heard. As you can see I have a very modest HT system. I have a Insigia 55 inch TV. I was watching and listening to a very modest system that was playing way out of its price range.
Now I have figured out that it must be operater error on why the unit sounds so bad in 2.1 stereo. One more time through the insturction manual and I decided to look at the configuration that the ARCS came up with in its test. There is the problem ! Front speakers were set to large and the crossover was wrong (at least in my view.) A few quick clicks of the remote and I am ready for my third listen set up in 2.1 stereo. Bingo much better. A few more adjustments in crossovers and equalization and I am sitting here in my family room with a smile on my face a glass of wine and writing this post. The Fusion 8100 is much more than I expected in SQ when I bought it. It is very,very good in 2.1 stereo and killer in 5.1 home theater setup.
The lession is if you buy the Fusion 8100 go ahead and run the ARCS first and see how your system sounds. If you are not happy with the SQ don't give up. You have 30 days to send the unit back. Read the manual more than once and play with all the different set ups that you have and you will be able to dial in the SQ to your liking. The unit has plenty of power for most of the population. The 65 watts a channel are plenty for me in the 5.1 or 7.1 mode and the 110 watts a channel in 2.1 stereo is plenty for my Tango's.
As usual Emotiva delievers on its claim for it products. The Fusion 8100 just needs some time for the buyer to get the full potenial out of the unit. I highly recomend it for both stereo and multichannel listening and watching.
