Multiple failures with XPA 1L Am I the only one?

[edonsmith1]

I bought my pair of amps about 10 months ago to replace a Coda/Legacy stereo amp and at first things were great. Then a few months later one amp gave me the dreaded flashing amber light so after contacting Emotiva I sent it in for repair.  I got it back a few weeks later with a list of items replaced and I wired it back into the system again. In my setup the amps power the front main speakers with a precut from the AV receiver. Then the rest of the 5.1 system is powered from the receiver. Well just a bit later it failed again. I sent it back again. Then after a few weeks it was back but this time they said it was only the fuses blown. So I get it wired back in and once again it failed in a short time. Before sending it back I emailed tech support who helped me with some trouble shooting and then I changed out the RCA cables with new ones, Changed the speaker cables to new ones, I even swapped the power cable from the other amp that never fails and wired the amps into a different preamp output. Meaning the amp that was fed from the left channel is now fed from the right and I also swapped the speakers from left to right. Then I replaced the fuses and tried again.

After reconnecting everything it only took about 2-3 days for the same amp to fail again and I am now waiting on tech support to advise whats next. Since they don't make the amp model anymore I assume they can't just send me a new one so I don't know what to expect.

Has anyone else had a similar problem that could shed some light on what I should do next?  Im stumped and I think tech support is too because after the second trip there they say it works fine on their test bench

[novisnick]

Feb 1, 2016 20:11:02 GMT -5 edonsmith1 said:

I bought my pair of amps about 10 months ago to replace a Coda/Legacy stereo amp and at first things were great. Then a few months later one amp gave me the dreaded flashing amber light so after contacting Emotiva I sent it in for repair.  I got it back a few weeks later with a list of items replaced and I wired it back into the system again. In my setup the amps power the front main speakers with a precut from the AV receiver. Then the rest of the 5.1 system is powered from the receiver. Well just a bit later it failed again. I sent it back again. Then after a few weeks it was back but this time they said it was only the fuses blown. So I get it wired back in and once again it failed in a short time. Before sending it back I emailed tech support who helped me with some trouble shooting and then I changed out the RCA cables with new ones, Changed the speaker cables to new ones, I even swapped the power cable from the other amp that never fails and wired the amps into a different preamp output. Meaning the amp that was fed from the left channel is now fed from the right and I also swapped the speakers from left to right. Then I replaced the fuses and tried again.

After reconnecting everything it only took about 2-3 days for the same amp to fail again and I am now waiting on tech support to advise whats next. Since they don't make the amp model anymore I assume they can't just send me a new one so I don't know what to expect.

Has anyone else had a similar problem that could shed some light on what I should do next?  Im stumped and I think tech support is too because after the second trip there they say it works fine on their test bench

Welcome to the forum! So sorry your having an issue with your amp (s). I've purchased 4 of these amps and love there sound and dependability, I've never had any issue with this, or any Emotiva amp. 
Sorry I can't offer a resolution for you. Good luck and please keep us in the loop as to what the issue is/was. Hope you continue to hang around the forum, more friends and input is always a good thing.

Ill pass along that your application to the MONOBLOCKS Society will be sent ASAP.

novisnick

[Gary Cook]

Early last year I helped out a guy who had 3 x XPA-1L's where 2 had apparently failed, one rather badly (smoke etc). Emotiva replaced the smoked one straight up and I checked over the other 2 and could find nothing wrong with them on the bench. So I ran them in my system for a couple of weeks and had no issues. As a result I had him check his connections and he found the interconnects had intermittent open circuits in the earth/neutral/shield. This sends XPA's into a feedback spiral which either trips the fuse and/or smokes the output resistors.

So my first suggestion would be to check all the cables, having one failure is most unusual, multiples commonly point to an external cause.

Cheers
Gary

[edonsmith1]

Thanks Gary for the tip and one of the earlier Emotiva service calls had suggested that so at one point I removed all the RCA cables and pinched in the lugs around the spade to tighten then up on the female connector on the AMP. It didn't seem to help as the amp failed again. The cables were so tight going on I know they were not rattling around that time. As I mentioned in the first post I also completely swapped the cables out this last time to a new set and it did the same exact thing one the same exact amp.

So unfortunately I don't think it is something as simple as a cable being loose. The techs at Emotiva had me change a whole lot of things the last time virtual swapping everything external of the amp and it didn't make any difference as the amp failed again after just a few days.

[Gary Cook]

His cables weren't loose, there were faults in the earth/neutral/shield. My guess, and it's only a guess, is that someone had removed them by pulling on the cables rather than using the plug itself. Or maybe tripped over them, which yanks on the internal wiring as the outer plastic just stretches. Apparently they would work just fine some days and not others. Because it was the earth/neutral/shield there would still be sound, whereas if it was the active/centre/hot there would be a loss of sound and/or some distortion noticeable.

I used to deal with kilometres of cables and hundreds of bits of hardware at live shows and more than 80% of the time any problems we encountered were cables. Even little short patches and brand new ones out of the box. As a result it's what I check thoroughly first, when that's eliminated I move on to hardware.


Cheers
Gary

[cegtv]

yes i have sent mine back twice for the same problem,the guy i got them from sent it back before me and yes he did not tell me i saw the rma on the box

when i sent mine back the first time,  it is there now being repaired,now i might be over the whole monoblock thing and sell these,get something else,will see good luck .

[audiosyndrome]

I don't believe the few failures reported above are representative of the XPA-1L amplifiers in total. I have five XPA-1Ls, one for each channel, for well over a year now. I've never had a problem with any of the amps and the front channels are on 10-12 hours a day. The center and rears probably 3-4 hours a day.

Russ

[cegtv]

I have had  my amp fail once evey year since i have owned them and it is getting a little annoying at this point ,i have two years left on my warranty which is $ 25.00 everytime i send back so they may have a low rate of failure but it is still a failure and its the same problem every time .so someone needs to figure this out.
as much as  i love my xpa-1l i mite be time to just move on .

[audiobill]

How about tubes??

[cegtv]

that is the direction i am leaning ,may go with an intergrated tube amp.

[edonsmith1]

I have had so many different things happen since my last post I don't even know where to start. At this point I am wondering if it was HEAT that caused the amp to go into protect mode?
After noticing my failed amp a few days later I turned it on and it worked again. Each time I had a failure it was the TOP amp of the two stacked together. I had 2" spacers between them so I thought that should handle it.

I put my amp back in the system again and this time I also moved one amp out of the cabinet and placed it on the floor next to the cabinet. Its not really long term option but if it runs like this a week without a failure, maybe that was it. I have also had some fuses below before too so I am not sure if heat can cause that too.

Still testing as of now

[cheapthryl]

The XPA 1's and the XPA 1L's run hot. Out of all the Emotiva amps these I would definitely not stack.
Hope this solves your problem.

[edonsmith1]

Its been a few weeks now and all seems to be well again for the moment. I think maybe it was the HEAT. I moved one amp out of the cabinet completely and the other is now alone there. They run a LOT cooler this way and not once have they popped a fuse or gone into overload. If they still work in a month, I will try moving the other one back in the cabinet and adding a small fan to keep some air moving in there. I really like the way these sound so hopefully that is all it was. I don't run them in Class a mode but they still get pretty hot and stacked made it worse even though I had big spacers in-between them.

[novisnick]

Feb 28, 2016 21:40:56 GMT -5 edonsmith1 said:

Its been a few weeks now and all seems to be well again for the moment. I think maybe it was the HEAT. I moved one amp out of the cabinet completely and the other is now alone there. They run a LOT cooler this way and not once have they popped a fuse or gone into overload. If they still work in a month, I will try moving the other one back in the cabinet and adding a small fan to keep some air moving in there. I really like the way these sound so hopefully that is all it was. I don't run them in Class a mode but they still get pretty hot and stacked made it worse even though I had big spacers in-between them.

XPA-1L's need their space! They must breathe very well. Period!

[edonsmith1]

It is now April and still no more failures so I am concluding it was the excessive heat. I have been running the amps a lot more just to test them but so far they are both working great. They always sounded great so that was never an issue anyway.

So if you are having amps fail or go into protection make sure they are not too hot.

[robcoff]

I have similar issues. The first time it happened it went into protect mode and snapped a fuse. So I called emo techie who walked me through a bunch of things. We have a repair depot in Canada now so the shipping wasn't too ridiculous (maybe $40)through Canada Post. After a few weeks I rec'd an email that they replaced the fuses and it tested fine. About a month later it went into protect mode this time without blowing fuses. I took it out of the cabinet and left it alone overnight. Plugged it in, turned it on and worked good all day. Put it back into cabinet and same thing - worked fine for several hours then protect mode time. This happens usually once a week now. Then I got a brainwave (2 actually) and switched it to AB mode yesterday. Significant reduction in heat but I haven't placed it back in the cabinet yet. My second idea was to order a laptop cooler to place underneath the problematic XPA1l. I will report back with results but I am baffled as to why I have this problem with only one of the pair I have. Plus its rather pointless to have a Class A amp and have to run it in AB.

[garbulky]

Apr 11, 2016 9:40:40 GMT -5 robcoff said:

I have similar issues. The first time it happened it went into protect mode and snapped a fuse. So I called emo techie who walked me through a bunch of things. We have a repair depot in Canada now so the shipping wasn't too ridiculous (maybe $40)through Canada Post. After a few weeks I rec'd an email that they replaced the fuses and it tested fine. About a month later it went into protect mode this time without blowing fuses. I took it out of the cabinet and left it alone overnight. Plugged it in, turned it on and worked good all day. Put it back into cabinet and same thing - worked fine for several hours then protect mode time. This happens usually once a week now. Then I got a brainwave (2 actually) and switched it to AB mode yesterday. Significant reduction in heat but I haven't placed it back in the cabinet yet. My second idea was to order a laptop cooler to place underneath the problematic XPA1l. I will report back with results but I am baffled as to why I have this problem with only one of the pair I have. Plus its rather pointless to have a Class A amp and have to run it in AB.

The XPA-1 Ls have a circuit in it which prevents class A mode from producing too much heat and it is supposed to throttle the bias down when temp is too much. Surprising this hasn't kicked in and prevented this.

[KeithL]

Just for the record, we have run XPA-1L's for extended periods of time with the vents entirely blocked.... they get VERY HOT, but do NOT go into protect, and do NOT fail. Therefore, while providing sufficient ventilation is always recommended, and excess heat will often shorten the life expectancy of many electronic components, the XPA-1L most certainly does not have "a heat problem". However, if there is some other sort of problem going on with the amp, excess heat certainly might cause it to manifest itself, or to get worse. (For example, if there's a fault in the circuitry that adjusts the bias, or in the output drive circuitry.)

NOTE THAT, AS CONCERNS RUNNING YOUR XPA-1L WITHOUT SUFFICIENT VENTILATION....
"WE DO NOT RECOMMEND YOU TRY THIS AT HOME" - AND DOING SO WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY SHORTEN THE LIFE OF YOUR AMPLIFIER.

For best performance, and best product life, we ALWAYS recommend that you provide adequate ventilation.

Apr 11, 2016 9:40:40 GMT -5 robcoff said:

I have similar issues. The first time it happened it went into protect mode and snapped a fuse. So I called emo techie who walked me through a bunch of things. We have a repair depot in Canada now so the shipping wasn't too ridiculous (maybe $40)through Canada Post. After a few weeks I rec'd an email that they replaced the fuses and it tested fine. About a month later it went into protect mode this time without blowing fuses. I took it out of the cabinet and left it alone overnight. Plugged it in, turned it on and worked good all day. Put it back into cabinet and same thing - worked fine for several hours then protect mode time. This happens usually once a week now. Then I got a brainwave (2 actually) and switched it to AB mode yesterday. Significant reduction in heat but I haven't placed it back in the cabinet yet. My second idea was to order a laptop cooler to place underneath the problematic XPA1l. I will report back with results but I am baffled as to why I have this problem with only one of the pair I have. Plus its rather pointless to have a Class A amp and have to run it in AB.

[JKCashin]

The manual says (emphasis mine):

Be sure to install your XPA-1L in a location with plenty of ventilation. If you are installing it in
an enclosed location, ensure that there is sufficient ventilation or forced air cooling. If you are installing it in a “stack” or rack, ensure that there is sufficient clearance to allow free ow of air on all sides of the XPA-1L. We recommend at least four inches of clearance on all sides for the XPA-1L (if you can’t provide sufficient clearance, then forced air ventilation is strongly recommended).
insert quote here

Of course we all know this now, from reading this thread!

But let's read the manual some more... again, emphasis mine:

While the XPA-1L will get quite warm in Class A Mode, it will never get dangerously hot, nor will it exceed CE safety limits for case temperature. You should, however, be especially careful to avoid blocking the vents on the XPA-1L when running it in Class A Mode. If the XPA-1L runs excessively hot due to insufficient ventilation or very high ambient temperature, the intelligent monitoring system will automatically switch it into Class A/B Mode.

The highlighted part, I did not know, but it makes sense, and I'm glad to hear the amp is designed this way!

[novisnick]

Apr 11, 2016 18:33:49 GMT -5 JKCashin said:

The manual says (emphasis mine):

Be sure to install your XPA-1L in a location with plenty of ventilation. If you are installing it in
an enclosed location, ensure that there is sufficient ventilation or forced air cooling. If you are installing it in a “stack” or rack, ensure that there is sufficient clearance to allow free ow of air on all sides of the XPA-1L. We recommend at least four inches of clearance on all sides for the XPA-1L (if you can’t provide sufficient clearance, then forced air ventilation is strongly recommended).
insert quote here

Of course we all know this now, from reading this thread!

But let's read the manual some more... again, emphasis mine:

While the XPA-1L will get quite warm in Class A Mode, it will never get dangerously hot, nor will it exceed CE safety limits for case temperature. You should, however, be especially careful to avoid blocking the vents on the XPA-1L when running it in Class A Mode. If the XPA-1L runs excessively hot due to insufficient ventilation or very high ambient temperature, the intelligent monitoring system will automatically switch it into Class A/B Mode.

The highlighted part, I did not know, but it makes sense, and I'm glad to hear the amp is designed this way!

This is NOT new news!!
I've owned two sets of these amps and they have ALWAYS run hot in Classe A , fact! Nothing new to see here.
my first set was shortly after I joined this forum, July 8, 2013 to be exact. Great amps, always have been! Always run hot in Classe A as well.
PS; I still have and enjoy the second set of these amps. Well, honestly I'll be back to enjoyjng them more when returned from a friend from audition. No hurry though, i have his tube pre amp!! No hurry at all!!,,,,he,,,,,he,,,,,,he,,,,,,,,