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Post by thezone on May 12, 2020 5:44:47 GMT -5
Hi all,
I have ordered an XMC-2 to replace my XMC-1 and I thought I might consider changing amps and increasing my speaker count while I'm in the upgrade mood. (And while there's a 30% emo bucks offer).
My current 4.1 set up - Front L&R (Dynaudio Countour S3.4s), Front Centre (Countour SCX) and a rear centre (Krix Centrix) which I am running in mono from one of the rear surround outputs (I have told the XMC-1 that there is only one rear surround). I am contemplating adding a matching pair as rear surrounds, and the centre as a single mono back speaker.
Issue is I have a Rotel RMB-1095 which only has 5 channels so I am one channel in arrears with this set up.
To facilitate this I was contemplating selling the Rotel (which I do like very much and has been rock solid amp with zero issues for the past 12 years) and getting a XPA Gen3 Modular AMP with 8 channels, 4 x High Power Modules (for the 4ohm dynes and the 6ohm Krix) and 2 x Stereo Modules (for the new rear surrounds and potentially two more ceiling speakers in the future).
1) How is the reliability of these amps? 2) The Rotel is 200w x 5 into 8ohm but more like 300x into 4ohms. The Gen 3 High Power Modules are quoted around 490w into 4ohms so plenty of headroom is this too much perhaps? The Dynes are rated around 250w - 270w 4 Ohm. 3) I Realise that this is a difficult question but I wonder how the sound of the Gen 3 would compare to my trusty Rotel. 4) I was thinking of getting a pair of Airmotive B+ if they come back into stock (would be free if I purchased the aforesaid XPA Gen3 given the Emo bucks promo). How do these fair for rear surrounds? Or should I get some Dynaudios or perhaps Krix to match some of the speakers I already have? I assume the small stereo modules of the XPA would be more than sufficient to power a pair of B+.
Thanks for reading.
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stiehl11
Emo VIPs
Give me available light!
Posts: 7,261
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Post by stiehl11 on May 12, 2020 7:16:40 GMT -5
1) Rock solid from what I've heard from others. My Gen 3 amp is less than a week old and working fine. 2) Underpowered amps kill speakers. You should be fine. 3) Don't know. 4) I use B1 speakers for my heights and they do fine.
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Post by davidl81 on May 12, 2020 7:46:53 GMT -5
Hi all, I have ordered an XMC-2 to replace my XMC-1 and I thought I might consider changing amps and increasing my speaker count while I'm in the upgrade mood. (And while there's a 30% emo bucks offer). My current 4.1 set up - Front L&R (Dynaudio Countour S3.4s), Front Centre (Countour SCX) and a rear centre (Krix Centrix) which I am running in mono from one of the rear surround outputs (I have told the XMC-1 that there is only one rear surround). I am contemplating adding a matching pair as rear surrounds, and the centre as a single mono back speaker. Issue is I have a Rotel RMB-1095 which only has 5 channels so I am one channel in arrears with this set up. To facilitate this I was contemplating selling the Rotel (which I do like very much and has been rock solid amp with zero issues for the past 12 years) and getting a XPA Gen3 Modular AMP with 8 channels, 4 x High Power Modules (for the 4ohm dynes and the 6ohm Krix) and 2 x Stereo Modules (for the new rear surrounds and potentially two more ceiling speakers in the future). 1) How is the reliability of these amps? 2) The Rotel is 200w x 5 into 8ohm but more like 300x into 4ohms. The Gen 3 High Power Modules are quoted around 490w into 4ohms so plenty of headroom is this too much perhaps? The Dynes are rated around 250w - 270w 4 Ohm. 3) I Realise that this is a difficult question but I wonder how the sound of the Gen 3 would compare to my trusty Rotel. 4) I was thinking of getting a pair of Airmotive B+ if they come back into stock (would be free if I purchased the aforesaid XPA Gen3 given the Emo bucks promo). How do these fair for rear surrounds? Or should I get some Dynaudios or perhaps Krix to match some of the speakers I already have? I assume the small stereo modules of the XPA would be more than sufficient to power a pair of B+. Thanks for reading. I run the XPA-9 Gen 3 for my center and surround channels, before that I had a XPA-5 Gen 2. I have been extremely impressed with my Gen 3, it sounds great with all of the head room in the world. Some people on here do not like the switching power supply, but I am not sure how many of them have really heard the amp. With the emo buck rebate right now I think it would be a great time to buy it.
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Post by macromicroman on May 12, 2020 11:46:34 GMT -5
Rooster19 has the exact Emotiva amp on the forum for sale.
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Post by Zombie on May 12, 2020 12:46:31 GMT -5
I love my Gen 3's. Use them every single day without a hiccup and they sound great. Very happy with them.
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Post by thezone on May 12, 2020 18:51:58 GMT -5
Rooster19 has the exact Emotiva amp on the forum for sale. Thanks for the replies everyone. That's bad timing as the emo bucks is on. And to be honest Its not that much cheaper than a new one with full warranty.
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Post by thezone on May 13, 2020 18:54:57 GMT -5
I'm still wondering if there is any benefit in swapping my single rear speaker for a pair of rears or adding a pair of side rears and leaving my single rear ( I don't have the room to add 4 - 2 side rears and 2 rears). How much information actually sound comes out of these anyway?
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Post by AudioHTIT on May 14, 2020 1:23:47 GMT -5
I'm still wondering if there is any benefit in swapping my single rear speaker for a pair of rears or adding a pair of side rears and leaving my single rear ( I don't have the room to add 4 - 2 side rears and 2 rears). How much information actually sound comes out of these anyway? So you’re saying you’d go from 4.1 to 5.1 (w/ 2 surrounds) or 6.1 (w/2 surrounds and 1 rear). The surrounds (sides) are used quite a bit, and more and more I’m hearing localized left / right info (supporting dual surrounds). Modern remixes are also using more rears, as do the upmixers, but a single pair of heights may be more noticeable than rears. But it really comes down to your source material, if you’re watching Blu-ray or UHD disks all your channels get a workout, same with the better streaming services., TV, not so much. If you have the room, do it, the XMC-2 will fill ‘em up.
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Post by thezone on May 15, 2020 2:49:38 GMT -5
I'm still wondering if there is any benefit in swapping my single rear speaker for a pair of rears or adding a pair of side rears and leaving my single rear ( I don't have the room to add 4 - 2 side rears and 2 rears). How much information actually sound comes out of these anyway? So you’re saying you’d go from 4.1 to 5.1 (w/ 2 surrounds) or 6.1 (w/2 surrounds and 1 rear). The surrounds (sides) are used quite a bit, and more and more I’m hearing localized left / right info (supporting dual surrounds). Modern remixes are also using more rears, as do the upmixers, but a single pair of heights may be more noticeable than rears. But it really comes down to your source material, if you’re watching Blu-ray or UHD disks all your channels get a workout, same with the better streaming services., TV, not so much. If you have the room, do it, the XMC-2 will fill ‘em up. Awesome thanks for that info. I'll try messing around with different combinations. I have a pair of Dyneaudio 42s on the way so I will replace my single rear speaker with these two for now. The next step would be to use the 42's as side surrounds and plug the single centre speaker back in as a single mono rear surround but I cant do that unless I buy a new amp as mine only has 5 channels: ( So I guess I would need to know this is significant before upgrading. Anyway I wont be able to try anything for a while as I have just sent my XMC-1 to Emotiva from Australia to trade it in on an XMC-2 so this may take a few weeks!
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Post by leonski on May 30, 2020 23:11:39 GMT -5
Hi all, I have ordered an XMC-2 to replace my XMC-1 and I thought I might consider changing amps and increasing my speaker count while I'm in the upgrade mood. (And while there's a 30% emo bucks offer). My current 4.1 set up - Front L&R (Dynaudio Countour S3.4s), Front Centre (Countour SCX) and a rear centre (Krix Centrix) which I am running in mono from one of the rear surround outputs (I have told the XMC-1 that there is only one rear surround). I am contemplating adding a matching pair as rear surrounds, and the centre as a single mono back speaker. Issue is I have a Rotel RMB-1095 which only has 5 channels so I am one channel in arrears with this set up. To facilitate this I was contemplating selling the Rotel (which I do like very much and has been rock solid amp with zero issues for the past 12 years) and getting a XPA Gen3 Modular AMP with 8 channels, 4 x High Power Modules (for the 4ohm dynes and the 6ohm Krix) and 2 x Stereo Modules (for the new rear surrounds and potentially two more ceiling speakers in the future). 1) How is the reliability of these amps? 2) The Rotel is 200w x 5 into 8ohm but more like 300x into 4ohms. The Gen 3 High Power Modules are quoted around 490w into 4ohms so plenty of headroom is this too much perhaps? The Dynes are rated around 250w - 270w 4 Ohm. 3) I Realise that this is a difficult question but I wonder how the sound of the Gen 3 would compare to my trusty Rotel. 4) I was thinking of getting a pair of Airmotive B+ if they come back into stock (would be free if I purchased the aforesaid XPA Gen3 given the Emo bucks promo). How do these fair for rear surrounds? Or should I get some Dynaudios or perhaps Krix to match some of the speakers I already have? I assume the small stereo modules of the XPA would be more than sufficient to power a pair of B+. Thanks for reading. Speakers don't have watts, so worry about Gen3 module output is not really very important. Especially considering how much power you probably actually do us. As for additional speakers? I'd be more concerned with timbre match rather than 'the good deal'.....Matching 'em would not be a bad idea... If ALL you need is ONE ore channel of amplification? Get a PA-1 and connect to the center channel speaker.....
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Post by garbulky on Jun 2, 2020 17:10:16 GMT -5
Since you asked about the sound - keep in mind this is a subjective impression. I have heard the XPA-2 gen 3. My friend and I compared it directly wit the emotiva Basx A-300 and we thought the A-300 sounded a lot more natural. The soundstage sounded more open and relaxed. While the XPA-2 gen 3 had a more artificial sounding treble. Now Emotiva has never made a bad amp. So keep that in mind. The XPA-2 gen 3 still sound significantly better than a few amps I've heard. But I would not reccomend this amp for sound. Having said that it does have a large amount of power and it is very fast in microdynamics. My reccomendations are the Emotiva PA-1, the Emotiva XPA-1 gen 2 and the Emotiva XPA-2 gen 2. These are all excellent amps but only the PA-1 is in current production.
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Post by SteveH on Jun 2, 2020 17:23:39 GMT -5
I purchased a Thirteen 1.6s and that amplifier kicks ass! One 300W channel for my center channel twelve 65W channels for the Surrounds/Atmos and Zone 2.
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Post by ttocs on Jun 2, 2020 18:11:38 GMT -5
I would think that you've already placed an order for amplification to suit your needs, but,
I agree with those that suggest getting a PA-1, if all you need is one channel. Plus, that Rotel is from an era of when Rotel made some great amps! It's worth repairing when the time comes.
And, FWIW, I haven't had any issues with any Emotiva product from an operational standpoint, firmwares notwithstanding.
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Post by leonski on Jun 2, 2020 20:06:34 GMT -5
I purchased a Thirteen 1.6s and that amplifier kicks ass! One 300W channel for my center channel twelve 65W channels for the Surrounds/Atmos and Zone 2. That's over 1kw output which is tough for a normal amp to get to.....especially since it's probably a 15amp circuit and other stuff is plugged in, as well. I'd suspect under normal use conditions? 3 or 4 watts per surround with possible 30 or 40 watt peaks (10db?) while center channel might be 30 watts max with again, a 10 db peak to 300 watts. In any event, plenty of power for a surround system. With reasonably sensitive 'easy' speakers. I've seen HT-style 'D' amps with maybe 7 channels (all same) on a single board.
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Post by SteveH on Jun 3, 2020 16:05:32 GMT -5
I purchased a Thirteen 1.6s and that amplifier kicks ass! One 300W channel for my center channel twelve 65W channels for the Surrounds/Atmos and Zone 2. That's over 1kw output which is tough for a normal amp to get to.....especially since it's probably a 15amp circuit and other stuff is plugged in, as well. Aha, I did some pre-planning prior to purchasing my Emotiva gear (three amps, two powered subs and an RMC-1). I added a sub panel in my garage and gave each piece of equipment it's own dedicated 20 amp circuit. The amps can run full throttle!
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Post by leonski on Jun 3, 2020 19:35:02 GMT -5
Good job on the Power. Me? Just for giggles, I'd get a Kill-A-Watt meter (mayb 25$, these days) and plug it in near the box. Than crank it up and see just how much voltage drop you can induce. Next thing you know? You'll b sending off for a couple large Isolation Transformers! www.tripplite.com/isolator-series-120v-1000w-isolation-transformer-based-power-conditioner-4-outlets~IS1000This is a 1kw model and would probably run an entire system Not Includes subs and amps. My power conditioner (panamax) has a 400va transformer included and i use that for the TV, Preamp and small dish receiver. A 'Hospital Grade' 2kw unit would work for ANY amp feasible for home use.
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