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Post by hdkeith on Sept 26, 2017 15:03:35 GMT -5
You will never be able to match what they did. Your source, your speakers and your volume will never line up with their test which is why your testing it out and stressing it in whatever way you think you'll listen to it is infinitely more valuable than what they did. The Emo is more than in the same league as far more expensive amps - those amps will have the edge in build construction and aesthetics, but the sonic gains will be extremely small. Amps just aren't that complicated and the differences between very good amps is very very small. Obviously you have preconceived in your mind that cost equates to performance and Stereophile knows much more than you. Getting the Emo will cause you forever doubts and buyers remorse because until the light bulb comes on for you, you'll always be thinking "what if". Part 1: "The Emo is more than in the same league as far more expensive amps..." That is a VERY true statement! A great value and priced far below what a brick and mortar would charge for their products!
Part 2: "as far more expensive amps - those amps will have the edge in build construction and aesthetics, but the sonic gains will be extremely small..." This is the statement that caught my attention.. That statement is simply not even close to being associated with reality. With all do respect the only comparison you can make is shear volume (db/SPL) from one amp to another. Differences as in Soundstage, note decay, noise floor and about a 100 others help determine the "sound" of an amp. And trust me as an owner of Emotiva amps for years and an owner of Bryston Amps as well as Carver there is a HUGE difference in musicality between them and a very audible difference in a very musical way as you climb up the amplifier ladder.
Part 3: " Amps just aren't that complicated and the differences between very good amps is very very small..." Ouch! Tell that to John Curl, Bob Carver, Stuart Taylor, Tim Paravicini and Lonnie (EMO) just to mention a few. These guys are on a constant quest to "better" their products for better sound reproduction and not always for new sales but it is their passion. And the more expensive they get the better build, electronics, design and typically a better representation of the recording (not always but mostly) So...amps are that complicated and differences are not very, very small.
I'll be naive, but shouldn't an amps job be to effect the input as little as possible other than amplify it? I know that implementation will impact that capability, but wouldn't an amp design be striving to match input as closely as possible? |
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Post by geebo on Sept 26, 2017 15:30:53 GMT -5
Part 1: "The Emo is more than in the same league as far more expensive amps..." That is a VERY true statement! A great value and priced far below what a brick and mortar would charge for their products!
Part 2: "as far more expensive amps - those amps will have the edge in build construction and aesthetics, but the sonic gains will be extremely small..." This is the statement that caught my attention.. That statement is simply not even close to being associated with reality. With all do respect the only comparison you can make is shear volume (db/SPL) from one amp to another. Differences as in Soundstage, note decay, noise floor and about a 100 others help determine the "sound" of an amp. And trust me as an owner of Emotiva amps for years and an owner of Bryston Amps as well as Carver there is a HUGE difference in musicality between them and a very audible difference in a very musical way as you climb up the amplifier ladder.
Part 3: " Amps just aren't that complicated and the differences between very good amps is very very small..." Ouch! Tell that to John Curl, Bob Carver, Stuart Taylor, Tim Paravicini and Lonnie (EMO) just to mention a few. These guys are on a constant quest to "better" their products for better sound reproduction and not always for new sales but it is their passion. And the more expensive they get the better build, electronics, design and typically a better representation of the recording (not always but mostly) So...amps are that complicated and differences are not very, very small.
I'll be naive, but shouldn't an amps job be to effect the input as little as possible other than amplify it? I know that implementation will impact that capability, but wouldn't an amp design be striving to match input as closely as possible? Seems like a reasonable assumption to me. |
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Post by garbulky on Sept 26, 2017 15:46:30 GMT -5
Part 1: "The Emo is more than in the same league as far more expensive amps..." That is a VERY true statement! A great value and priced far below what a brick and mortar would charge for their products!
Part 2: "as far more expensive amps - those amps will have the edge in build construction and aesthetics, but the sonic gains will be extremely small..." This is the statement that caught my attention.. That statement is simply not even close to being associated with reality. With all do respect the only comparison you can make is shear volume (db/SPL) from one amp to another. Differences as in Soundstage, note decay, noise floor and about a 100 others help determine the "sound" of an amp. And trust me as an owner of Emotiva amps for years and an owner of Bryston Amps as well as Carver there is a HUGE difference in musicality between them and a very audible difference in a very musical way as you climb up the amplifier ladder.
Part 3: " Amps just aren't that complicated and the differences between very good amps is very very small..." Ouch! Tell that to John Curl, Bob Carver, Stuart Taylor, Tim Paravicini and Lonnie (EMO) just to mention a few. These guys are on a constant quest to "better" their products for better sound reproduction and not always for new sales but it is their passion. And the more expensive they get the better build, electronics, design and typically a better representation of the recording (not always but mostly) So...amps are that complicated and differences are not very, very small.
I'll be naive, but shouldn't an amps job be to effect the input as little as possible other than amplify it? I know that implementation will impact that capability, but wouldn't an amp design be striving to match input as closely as possible? It really depends. But first - shouldn't an amps job do as little to the signal other than amplify it. Basically just add gain? For me, the answer is yes BUT....the answer is an amp doesn't do this. Every electronic device will add some distortion to the signal. People will say "but the distortion is small and not audible" .....well that's a matter of opinion or intepretation of data - but it's not a fact. But the truth is there is no amp that will amplify a signal with zero distortion. The other bit is that there isn't some standard output for an amp. An amp has to push an output in to the reactive load of a speaker which will vary in its difficulty to drive depending on what it's being asked to do. This makes a difference to the signal produced on the amp side and how the speaker reproduces it. So an amp with a low damping factor may exhibit signficantly different output being pushed in to a hard to drive speaker versus another speaker. For instance Mangepan speakers are more resistive loads. While regular speakers are reactive loads and have reasonably wide impedance swings. Martin Logan speakers will dip down to below 2 ohms. While a single cone subwoofer may be a bit more uniform but use a much lower impedance. If an amp with low damping factor is also combined with large legnths of wire, that will also affect it. So the reason I'm saying that is my Axiom speakers do respond much better to my XPA-1 amplifier. The sound feels tighter, more resolving and realistic. While my old UPA-2 which puts out a fraction of the power can drive my speakers to deafening volumes but doesn't sound as good when listening at regular volumes. I have a Xenos 3HA headphone amp which has very good specs and drives my sennheiser HD600 very loudly. But...nowhere near as clearly at regular volumes as my DC-1 headphone amp. My DC-1 headphone amp cannot compete with my Mini-x A-100 in driving the sennheiser HD600. So there's some other factors other than amplify the signal. The answer is amplify the signal in to what and how well does it do that? Second - here's the depeds part. For some people that answer is no. Its job is not to amplify it perfectly. These people will tell you that it's job is to sound good in whatever way they define. Some tube amps will fall in to this cateogry. Dan Dagostino of Krell (and the D'agostino amps) said that his latest amps are meant to sound "musical" (which is subjective). He also said his latest amps do not measure as well as his old amps do. But they do sound better. Now this sounds easy to dismiss - well that's his opinion. You can't "quantify it". But eventually the designer of the amp created it for a sound and people who think it sounds great (or trust the designers subjective opinion he used to influence the amp) buy it. They don't give a hoot whether it's flat or not - so in this case subjectivity does matter. Check out Conrad Johnson's amps or Mcintosh amps. I doubt you'll find them perfectly accurate. But that house sound is what people go for. Different ways to approach the same thing. |
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Post by ryanmh1 on Sept 27, 2017 11:26:13 GMT -5
Eh, I had a good technical response with some comparative results typed up, but then I thought it just isn't fair to keep piling on a manufacturer in their own forum. The Stereophile review was public. If Emotiva has the data to rebut it, I'm sure it will come out eventually. I found a Gen2 which I'm sure I will be happy with for my surrounds. It came yesterday. It looks nice, and being a straightforward design and classic topology, I am sure it will work fine for surround duty. |
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Post by AudioHTIT on Oct 6, 2017 10:00:12 GMT -5
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Post by geebo on Oct 6, 2017 10:04:36 GMT -5
That one was actually from February of this year. Also note the comment at the end of the article:
"(Editor’s Note: The amplifier reviewed here was an early production run. Emotiva has made some on the fly revisions to the circuitry in later runs that we at Secrets have yet to evaluate. These changes could possibly affect the audio performance and we will be checking out the updated version in a future installment.)" |
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Post by AudioHTIT on Oct 6, 2017 10:11:31 GMT -5
That one was actually from February of this year. Also note the comment at the ens of the article:
"(Editor’s Note: The amplifier reviewed here was an early production run. Emotiva has made some on the fly revisions to the circuitry in later runs that we at Secrets have yet to evaluate. These changes could possibly affect the audio performance and we will be checking out the updated version in a future installment.)"EEK,! Sorry, didn’t catch the date ... ‘not quite so accurate news’ |
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Post by ryanmh1 on Oct 12, 2017 15:38:52 GMT -5
EEK,! Sorry, didn’t catch the date ... ‘not quite so accurate news’ Old(er) review and does not answer the question of how the amplifier performs with high frequencies at high output levels. Stereophile is the only magazine which conducts and shows the results of a CCIF IMD test, or shows the results of a frequency sweep. Even Audioholics, for all its virtues, does not normally publish this in graphs, although their CFP-BW test does cover it in text, to a degree. To date, Stereophile's test results remain the only published results of the amplifier's performance on high frequencies at high(er) powers. Hopefully Audioholics will get an amp and test it. |
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Post by rooster19 on Nov 1, 2017 12:07:03 GMT -5
just got my XPA3-11 this past week. It’s paired with a Lyngdorf MP50. no regrets so far. Sounds great, and having 11 channels in one box is quite nice.
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