XPA-1 vs. XPA-3 vs. Denon 2808

[truwarrior22]

I recently picked up a XPA-3 to go with my XPA-1s. From compairing 4-5 songs, I must say I do overall preffer the Emotiva amps over the Denon 2808 internal amps.

I noticed that the XPA-1s appeared to have the most fordward and sharp impacting sound. Any music where there was a quick powerful sound such as a clap, whip, etc. type sound, the XPA-1 delivered. Bass was nice and neutral.

I've found the XPA-3 to have a forward sound as well but not as forward as the XPA-1. Also the XPA-3 had a slight but noticable extra thump in kick drums, etc, but noticably lacked the overall clear and sharp sound of the XPA-1s.

The Denon 2808 had a laid back sound, but sounded good especially with horn and higher frequency instruments, but it's overall midrange was lacking. Bass was close to that of the XPA-1.

I personally like a forwarding sounding system compaired to a laid back system. It took me a little while to get use to the Emotiva amps but after playing more material the Emotivas started to grow on me and I can definitely appreciate the XPA-1s now.

Unfortantley while the XPA-3 don't quite live up to it's bigger brother, it's close enough to work very well as the center, and rears in a 5.1 system. Perhaps I'll compair the XPA-1 to the XPA-3 on the center channel instead of the mains, but don't really feel like being tempted to exchange for another XPA-1 lol

[darkvisions]

Thanks for the review. I run an XPA-3 for my center and surrounds and love how it matches with my XPA-1's.

[ntrain42]

The XPA-1 may sound a bit different because it basically is able to double its power from 8-4ohms. So typical cone/box speakers with varying impendance curves that jump up and down along their natural frequency response may sound a bit more "forward" at certain frequencies where the drivers impendance dips down low. The XPA-3 on the other hand does not double down its power into 4 ohms, so the same speaker may sound a bit more subdued at certain frequency points.

Easy solution to this is to get an SPL meter or RTA device and see what the natural frequency curve difference is between the speakers in question and the 2 different amps. Assuming your Pre/pro has a good eq function built in you can compensate for the amps different power ratings at specific points where the speakers impednace drops, thus getting a nice match between all speakers and their respective amplifier.

[strindl]

Just curious, have you tried running the XPA-3 on your mains just to see what it sounds like? I did that with my XPA-5 and it sounded surprisingly good. Not the equal of the XPA-1 of course, but not bad at all.

[Wideawake]

The XPA-1 is a monoblock amp. As such it provides 100% channel separation and therefore no crosstalk whatsoever. You cannot expect the XPA-3 to compete with that, even if the per channel wattage were to match. The XPA-1 is in a totally different league.