Fusion 8100 - Discontinued?

[B-613 Command]

I'm aware that there are quite many Emotiva models that have been given "Close Out Special" prices - and once they're gone they're gone. 

I was not aware that the Fusion 8100 was part of that list. 

The Fusion 8100 - on the Emotiva website - can no longer be purchased. Instead of "Add to Cart" the website says "Reserve" If you click that you get an error page.

Can someone at Emotiva give us an official statement on the Fusion 8100 ? 

If it is not discontinued can anyone give us an idea when these units will be available for purchase again?

Thanks!

[Deleted]

Emotiva employees do not necessarily monitor the Lounge threads and posts.  Why not just give Emotive a call and ask them yourself.

1-877-366-8324

[brubacca]

I actually hope that it is discontinued. I'd really like to see a new one with Dirac, built off of the xmc-1 platform, but more entry level. It would seem a bit quick for that since Dirac just got released.

[oldhifi]

There is one on Amazon sold by Emotiva

[B-613 Command]

Dec 28, 2014 9:28:43 GMT -5 oldhifi said:

There is one on Amazon sold by Emotiva

I could not find it on Amazon either. I searched for "Emotiva" and for "Fusion." I looked thru Receivers  and Amplifiers - even selected Emotiva as the brand. No Fusion. I think they've stopped making it. 

I've been suspecting they're going to stop trying to go head to head with the budget receivers and shoot for a niche above that. I am imagining a receiver based on the XMC-1 - could be where the new special amps came from - or where all the unsold UPA-700 went to - we'll see. 

I'm not waiting around for it. I have a Christmas present coming to me and i'm shopping audio. 

[oldhifi]

here it is:

www.amazon.com/Emotiva-Fusion-8100-Receiver/dp/B00JRHDCDO/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1419779338&sr=8-7&keywords=emotiva

[brubacca]

Says coming into stock December 30. It may pay to be patient.

[ocezam]

Dec 28, 2014 9:51:21 GMT -5 B-613 Command said:

I've been suspecting they're going to stop trying to go head to head with the budget receivers and shoot for a niche above that. I am imagining a receiver based on the XMC-1

I doubt it. The Fusion is such a new product, I don't believe Dan or any other businessman would kill it until he's sure it's had a fair chance of catching on. If the webpage says "reserve" it generally means that Tennessee is out of stock, but more inventory is expected.

Dec 28, 2014 10:36:43 GMT -5 brubacca said:

Says coming into stock December 30. It may pay to be patient.

Yep.

[knucklehead]

The 'Reserve' button tells me there are more coming but they are currently out of stock. When a product has been discontinued it simply disappears - never to be seen on the Emo website again. That the 'Reserve' button creates an error means someone at Emotiva didn't set up the proper page(s) so a reserve list could be made.

[B-613 Command]

Not sure where you're seeing Dec 30 - but thanks for the info. That may work.

I bought a Marantz SR5009 from Crutchfield - that's my wife's Christmas present to me. I'm not impressed with the sound quality. The bass is weak. The sound is dark and thin. The sound stage lacks dimension. I'll save the details for a review of that product.

I have 60 days with Crutchfield before it has to go back. I though i'd give Emotiva a try without my wife even knowing i'm doing it.

My experiment with the Marantz told me that all I really care about in the end is the sound quality. The Marantz has a dozen ways to play crappy compressed audio that I now know I don't care for. In 1985 I bought my first CD player. To this day that is still the highest quality music source available. (actually vinyl still rules but I cannot play those in my car etc.)

I'm hoping the parametric EQ is all I need on top of a good amp to get the sound i'm looking for. Hope so.

[brubacca]

We'll, I saw the December 30 thing on the amazon website, but it has changed. Best bet would be to call them and check on availability.

Just saw that you have SF Venere speakers. I wouldn't expect them to sound good with an amp like the Marantz. They need real power. The fusion has a real 65W amp and i'll bet that is more power than the Marantz is actually delivering to the speakers. The marantz rating is probably only 2 channels delivered, I would say you need to beefy amp to grab ahold of those 4 drivers per speaker. I might be a bit concerned that the Fusion doesn't have enough power to really bring out the best in those speakers.

I have a pair of the Venere 1.5 and can tell you that they love good power.

Also the Venere are 6 ohm speakers. That is probably the minimum spec on the Marantz.

[Dark Ranger]

The Fusion 8100 is worth waiting for if you prefer an AVR form-factor, but don't want to sacrifice the performance of separates. The processor/preamp section is a tweaked Emotiva UMC-200 / Sherbourn SR-8100. The amplifier section is basically an Ultra series. It handles 4 ohm loads without issue and has a larger power supply than most AVRs. Remember that the 65 watt spec is for all seven channels driven into 8 ohms. It'll do 110 watts for two channels driven into 8 ohms at <0.05% THD. If you're curious about the 4 ohm rating, it's 87 watts (ACD) and 130 watts (two channels driven) at rated distortion (<0.05%).

Based purely on these figures, it's more powerful than the SR5009 at rated distortion.

Here's another option: both of these AVRs offer pre-outs so you can add an amplifier for more headroom. For example, use an external amp for the front left/right, and then let the AVR run the center and surrounds. Consider this option if you like the Marantz feature set overall, but just find the power a bit lacking for your mains. Try a UPA-200 for your mains and that should do the trick.

I'd suggest trying out Audyssey MultEQ XT on the Marantz if you haven't already. If that doesn't do what you need, the Parametric EQ system on the Fusion 8100 should give you more precise control for taming the room.

[MusicHead]

B-613,

the SR-5009 or the older SR-7007 at the same price were two models I was considering myself. I have been planning a total revamp of my home threaten/music system and wanted to start with separate sometime next year, but the untimely demise of my good old NAD T-752 forced my hand to buy at a time when my budget is limited for a number of reasons.

I had to recall into service my even older TEAC receiver, back from the days of Dolby Surround, which I had retired in the basement and been using occasionally as a 2-ch amp with a couple of outdoor speakers during summer. However, when I saw the Fusion 8100 at half the price of the SR-5009 or SR-7007, I just had to rescue my ears... Should I still go separate in the near future, I can always keep the 8100 as a second system elsewhere in the house, thanks also to its diminutive (and misleading...) size.

Reading this thread, I guess I was one of the lucky ones to snatch the 8100 from Amazon before they were all sold. At that price I am not surprised... if you can get one while you still have the SR-8009, I'd do it, if nothing else to compare them. That kind of stuff is always fun and you learn something first hand. Just make sure you do proper level matching.

My front speakers are 6 Ohm too, although not of the pedigree of yours. I have a a full range Ensemble II system from Cambridge SoundWorks and no subwoofer. Very dated in light of the latest advancement in speaker technology and driver materials, no unobtanium magnet or ultrinium cones (sorry, just poking fun at the marketing folks...), but but believe me, still quite decent in term of sound. Besides being 6 Ohm, they are also not very efficient and they would suck the life out of the poor TEAC receiver when attempting to play beyond moderate listening levels. The NAD had no problem whatsoever in making them play as loud as my ear could tolerate and from my pre-sale discussion with Emotiva the 8100 power rating on 5 channels is the same as the NAD and a bit higher on two channel: NAD 5x80W or 2x100W, Fusion 5x80W or 2x110W (both on 8 Ohms and all channels tested simultaneously).

Indeed, the Fusion drives my speakers effortlessly and it seems to have gobs of power, whether I play 5-ch movies or 2-ch music (the latter being the most important to me). My room is small/medium size, though,  approximately 17x13, with the speakers positioned on the long side of the room, spaced about 7 feet, therefore not close to the corner of the room and with a 42" HDTV between them.

As Dark Ranger wrote, the 8100 should be able to drive your speakers more easily than the Marantz can do, at least at medium/high levels and if the room is not too big. In case those kind of data might interest you, I asked Emotiva about the power supply of the 8100. The toroidal transformer is 450VA and there is a total of 50,000uF capacitance distributed throughout the unit. As an added bonus (and a nice touch) I had the pleasure to have this data communicated via email directly from Lonnie Vaughn, VP Product Development at Emotiva (try to get that from Marantz.... or any of the other "big guys" for that matter...)

I'd say that should allow the 8100 to drive lots of tough speakers up to reasonable levels. Personally, I am very happy with mine and I am having a blast listening again to lots of my music CDs and live concerts on DVD.

Good luck with your final decision and Happy New Year!

[shiftred]

I just called customer service and the told me they would be available on or around Jan. 8th 2015. Good think too because I've been wanting one for a while.

[B-613 Command]

Musichead, thanks for the info. I cannot even remember why I went with the Marantz first instead of the Emo - I seem to remember thinking my wife would like the BluTooth or AirPlay way of playing her music and not have to learn how to operate my audio system (like she's ever going to do that) Turns out the BluTooth connection from our iPhones were very easy to do but she still didn't want to do it - she went back to playing CDs on her computer. The sound quality of the BluTooth connection was quite good but AirPlay was horrible. Connecting my iPhone 5s directly into the unit - sounded worse than AM radio. Seriously - that bad. These Sonus faber speakers are very revealing. They are not forgiving at all and will expose any flaws in your gear or music without mercy. Pandora, internet radio, AirPlay - you name it - noticeably terrible - reminds me of AM radio. 

The Venere 3.0 are quite hard to drive. They use a 3rd-order filter between the woofers / midrange at 220 Hz - so they drop to 4 ohms quite rapidly in a frequency range where current demands are high. The average home-theater receiver is not going to drive them well enough - not enough current. Maybe I should get a high-current amp - something like a Krell KAV250a on Audiogon? That amp drives 150W into 8 ohms. It drives 300W into 4 ohms. That's what a high-current amp does. 

The Marantz was unable to drive them. I bi-amped my fronts and that helped a good bit. The bass got much stronger but was still a notch below what I can get from my old receiver. I'm using an old JVC Dolby Surround system. I'm 2.1 for music and 3.1 for HT. Given that, there's not a huge improvement for me moving up to the modern digital equipment. Dolby Digital does sound better. Having digital toslink connections for CD music does help a little. But not at the expense of having to use an inadequate amp.

I considered the idea of using the Marantz to drive my center and sub and using an external amp to drive my fronts - that's why I was starting with receivers and not pre-pros. I found that at the price range i'm looking at - all of the "affordable" pre-pros are also available as a receiver for the same price. The Fusion 8100 is the exact same product as the UMC-200 - same remote - same everything - you just get the BluTooth thing and a 7-channel amp for free (for a cheaper price right now) with the Fusion. Take Marantz - the AV7702 and the SR7009 are the exact same product - same box, same remote, same user manual, same price - one has balanced outputs where the other has speaker connections. One of those 2 gives you a free 9-channel amp the other does not. To me the receivers are like a buy 1 get 1 free pre-pro / amp special. So I got the SR5009 assuming I could use it to drive my center and any surrounds I decide to add and manage my sub. I could get a better amp to drive my fronts if it didn't do a good enough job of - which it didn't - so I tried to use my old receiver as an amp to test drive the setup. I could not get it to work. If I unplugged my fronts from the Marantz to plug them into my old receiver the center channel would stop playing. The Marantz refused to drive the center channel speaker unless it was also driving both fronts. Unhook any one front speaker and the center would stop playing. That was with Dolby Digital inputs too. Any input source. Conclusion - you cannot use a Marantz receiver as a pre-pro. You can only use it as a receiver. 

Audyssey? I HATE Audyssey. I've never used one of these room correction things before and I can tell you I totally hate this one. I kept running Audyssey setup over and over. At first when i'd turn it on the bass was ridiculously loud and the sub was not playing at all. I moved my sub volume from full to half and reran it. Then all you could hear was the sub. After 5 runs of Audyssey setup  and with the sub volume at 7.75 the sound was finally approaching reasonable. It still was making things too loud. I finally tricked it into giving me an OK sound with Audyssey turned on. But everytime your power goes out you have to go thru all that again? For what?  Some computer on crack's version of an equalizer setting? I can do much better myself thank you. But that's no longer an option - at least on Marantz. The only way to engage a manual EQ setting is to turn Audyssey off - meaning if you want a manual EQ setting it is not compensating for distance - you cannot use Dynamic Volume etc. On the older models you could. My advice to you - if you were after all going to get a Marantz now - get the older SR7007. These new models are crap for now. I had so many problems with my SR5009 it's not funny. I found no less than 7 bugs and had to do several resets and perform a firmware update. I'd hold off on getting one of the new models until they work out the bugs. Trust me - they have a long way to go before i'd even consider keeping one of those units. 

I think I will give the Fusion 8100 a try. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks for the info!

[brubacca]

If you are willing to go the external amplifier route for the Venere 3.0 it is definitely worth doing. As you said they like the power.

Could you do a Fusion and a XPA-2? Maybe the new SA-250? Possibly a XPA-3 for the fronts and center.

The one thing that the Marantz/Denon's of the world do right is features. They always have the latest and greatest technology.

[cheglie]

Dec 29, 2014 15:58:47 GMT -5 Dark Ranger said:

The Fusion 8100 is worth waiting for if you prefer an AVR form-factor, but don't want to sacrifice the performance of separates. The processor/preamp section is a tweaked Emotiva UMC-200 / Sherbourn SR-8100. The amplifier section is basically an Ultra series. It handles 4 ohm loads without issue and has a larger power supply than most AVRs. Remember that the 65 watt spec is for all seven channels driven into 8 ohms. It'll do 110 watts for two channels driven into 8 ohms at <0.05% THD. If you're curious about the 4 ohm rating, it's 87 watts (ACD) and 130 watts (two channels driven) at rated distortion (<0.05%).

Based purely on these figures, it's more powerful than the SR5009 at rated distortion.

Here's another option: both of these AVRs offer pre-outs so you can add an amplifier for more headroom. For example, use an external amp for the front left/right, and then let the AVR run the center and surrounds. Consider this option if you like the Marantz feature set overall, but just find the power a bit lacking for your mains. Try a UPA-200 for your mains and that should do the trick.

I'd suggest trying out Audyssey MultEQ XT on the Marantz if you haven't already. If that doesn't do what you need, the Parametric EQ system on the Fusion 8100 should give you more precise control for taming the room.



I agree with Dark Ranger.  I have had Marantz products for the last 15yrs.  I use one of their "slim-lines" in a second room and connect the pre-outs for the mains to one of my XPA-5's and it sounds great.  I don't believe you would get any processing improvements with the Fusion, only more power and quite frankly the Marantz has some pretty cool features, like the nice phone app that lets you control from anywhere in the house.  Of course if you don't want to use seperates my point is mute and the Fusion should fit the bill?

Cheglie

[MusicHead]

Ceglie,

I am with you, if you need or like features galore, Marantz and others are very appealing, especially with medium/high sensitivity speakers and if coupled with a sub to relieve the amp from the impedance "abyss" at low frequencies . However, I personally prefer an amplifier with emphasis on the "amplifying" part . To me, it's all about the power supply and a well sized output stage. A receiver rated as the 8100 is rated (all channels driven) will certainly be able to drive a difficult load better than most or an easier load with higher dynamic impact. Besides the ridiculously low THD figures virtually all amps are able to achieve these days, lack of dynamic to me is a form of distortion as well. While it is true that in a real scenario it will never happen that an amp be required to sustain all channels simultaneously at full power, the fact that it could reassures me that in more typical listening situation it will have enough dynamic reserve.

[MusicHead]

B-613,

by the way, in reference to a couple of your points:

- Bluetooth works quite well on the 8100, and it supports Apt-X for (allegedly) the best possible quality over Bluetooth. There is also an auto switch function, so that BT gets selected as soon as connection is made. Also the 8100 can "remember" up to five devices, I believe. Right now I have three devices memorized (two Android phones and one iPhone) and it works flawlessly.
- Going by Ohm's Law, yes, an ideal amplifier should double the power as you half the load impedance, no argument from me there. The problem is the cost associated with that kind of performance, which you do not need all the time... I believe an happy medium is what Emotiva, Outlaw, NAD, Rotel, Cambridge Audio, Anthem and few others do: honestly specified and engineered power amplifier, with a substantial power supply, plenty of output capacitance to sustain dynamic peaks and well designed discrete power stages, with well tuned Class AB biasing and protections that are not too restrictive. I am a fan of "high current" amplifiers too, however, marketing hype aside, at the end of the day, all well design amplifiers ends up to be high current, P=VI, right?
- Funny you mention an old Dolby Surround amp, it is the same kind of amp I had to revert to once my brawny NAD gave up the ghost... Going to the 8100 was like a rebirth. Not only because of the greater power headroom, but also because of the greater channel separations of all the various Dolby Digital and DTS flavor. Although still not as enjoyable as a well recorded CD, listening to my live concerts DVDs selecting the DTS track (which is typically at an higher bitrate than the corresponding DD 5.1) it has been heaven in the past two weeks.
- About Audissey, I have never tried it, however I think you will like the Fusion 8100 in this regard. I have run the ARC twice since I got the 8100. The first time it got lots of stuff wrong: size of the speakers, their distance and it boosted the range below 60Hz a bit too much. I made a few adjustments and went with those for a week. Today I re-run it and this time it was basically spot on with size of speakers, distance and much better with the overall room "correction". I will listen to this set-up for a little while, both multi-channel movies and two-channel music, and see how it sounds. Besides ARC, though, I believe the range of manual adjustments the 8100 allows is phenomenal. 11 band parametric equalizer for EACH of the seven channel, plus 3 bands for the sub, with three memory banks to store three EQ curves, plus a Flat and Automatic EQ setting (the latter is where the ARC parameters are stored and they can be manually adjusted too. Plus you have complete access to Bass management, including slope of the crossover point for all speakers and sub. It can either drive you crazy or make you ecstatic with all the possibilities!!

Considering that you have 60 days return option from Crutchfield and that by mid-January Emotiva should have more 8100s available, why not?

[frisco]

I'm close to replacing my old Denon 791  in my ht with a fusion 8100, but had some questions.

First the Denon has 90w rating. 8 ohms, but from what I read here, that rating isnt really comparable to the 8100s rating of 65 at eight ohms  and 80+ at four ohms with all 7 channels driven. Correct?  Will the 8100 be more than a side ways move in power, besides giving me comfort about handling 4 ohm loads?

In looking at the specs, I couldn't locate an unbalanced sw out. Did I miss that, and if there  is only an balanced output is there some sort of connection cord that I can use with my old sw, which appears to be unbalanced.

Last question is for anyone familiar with phase tech. I'm also looking to move my Phase Tech 1.5s to my office and will need to replace them as LR  for the ht system.  What would be a good phase tech speaker to match the 8100, another  pair of 1.5s, or can the 8100, without adding external amps, do justice to a 3.5 or the 9.5 tower. 

I more interested in audio quality than ht by the way, but am space constrained with respect to external amps.


thanks, This is a very informative forum.