Would like feedback from Emotiva ERT-8.3 owners

[klinemj]

One thing about the ERT-8.3's that impressed me was their power handling. If I recall correctly, at the first Emofest they had them biamped with xpa-1's. They handled the power and just got amazingly loud and clear. If I were into ear bleeding levels and hard, punchy music I would own a pair (up until the point I went deaf...which might take a month).

But, I did find them very pleasant overall, if a bit clinical sounding at times. I prefer the sound of my Maggies, but the ERT series has been high on my list since I first heard them.

Mark

[Deleted]

Rob, you are very welcome here anytime and to ask any questions you have.

I am the one who mentioned the Radio Shack meter.  I meant that for in the future if and when you have a premap or pre-pro that has adjustable narrow band EQ's like a parametric EQ that has like 12 or more frequency ranges and not simple bass/treble controls.  Forget the RS meter for now please as it takes some knowledge to properly adjust.

You said:   The Emo support guy told me they should be similar sounding and I could try the +-10db bass & treble trims for whatever that's worth.   Sorry, but I strongly disagree with that and I would not use any where near the full effect of these two bass and treble controls with the 8'3's.  No more than maybe +/- 3dB's max.   The tone effect is over a large frequency range which you don't need, and don't need to raise the bass level at all.  Each 3dB's you add with the bass control requires twice as much amp power!  These bass/treble trims are not designed for a high quality speakers sometimes at loud dynamic levels like the 8.3.

Again, I would like to say that you have two excellent speakers and the issues you hear are most likely not with your amp, preamp or CD player or other music source.  Many music sources however, are poorly recorded, not your equipment's fault.  With some careful room adjustments or speaker location they should sound very smooth and nice.  Other conventional speakers might sound better to you but that IMO would be a last resort.  Room photos when you get time will tell us a lot ..... one photo is worth many words in a post.  

PS:  You said:    I thought the xsp-1's bass and treble adjustments might help a lot until I saw in the manual that they were only +-2db. The +-2db adjustments on the back of the speakers didn't seem to make any difference to me at all, so figured I needed lot more.  The small adjustments (+/- 2dB's) are for a very good reason, too much adjustment with these wide range bass/treble controls will do way more harm than good.  You might for example, have a bass hump in the 100Hz area or a treble peak in the 5kHZ, 7.5kHz, 10kHz or 12kHz range.  The narrow range EQ that I mentioned above will carefully adjust only these problem areas.   Since decibels use a logarithmic scale, a 5-10 dB change represents a dramatic increase or decrease to a particular frequency band and especially in the bass area increases might require huge amounts of extra power driving your amp into clipping.